Sword Art Online Story of Sakore
by MSLBRAWL
Summary: A young boy acquires a new way of gaming, playing a VRMMO game called Sword Art Online, however when he gets in he learns the truth about the game. Appearently it became a Life and Death game and players must reach the 100th Floor to clear it. Can Sakore traverse through Aincraid an survive? [T rated for swearing, I don't own SAO only OC and making of story]
1. Ep 1 World of Swords

_**Sword Art Online; the Adventures of Sakore**_

_Arc 1; Ep1: The World of Swords_

Current date November 6, 2022. Today was the day of the official opening. A young boy who is 16 years of age was waiting for this day, as he sees a sibling of his out his window go to one of the cars and his mother enter the driver's seat and drove away to somewhere, as his computer is on talking about MMO talk for a first full dive game. He looked at the box that had the equipment ready for his beginning. He opened it up and grabbed the device for it to get working, the NerveGear. A headgear device able to go full dive into a VRMMO game called Sword Art Online. He was excited to be able to go into another level of gaming. He plugs it into his computer, inputs game into the cartridge and puts the NerveGear on his head and he starts it up and lays onto his bed and looked at the clock on the visor now changing to 1:00 and he smiles excited for this game.

"Link Start!" he shouts and dives into a simulation to calibrate everything and he starts creating his character to how he wants and puts in the name 'Sakore' as his alternate name for inside the game once he finished the words 'Welcome to Sword Art Online' showed and he appears inside the Town of Beginnings also the 1st Floor of the castle of Aincraid. His character has black hair and bright green eyes, with starting gear on with a dark blue shirt. He looks at his hands and then the sky with a grin "hello world, I'm here!" he notices more players logging in also with the same gear though being different colors as his except the girls have skirts on their person as guys have pants, he decides to go look around the market area wandering around seeing the shops and all the people now already starting to form groups and parties and Sakore wondered who to partner up with until he sees a guy running pass by him who he sees with a blue shirt and black hair. He then took a moment realizing that person must be a Beta-tester to the game and hurries to catch up to the person who already sees him talking with a guy in a white shirt and has long red hair reaching slightly to the back who also has a headband on.

"Oh please, I'm begging ya! Look my name's Klein, good to meet ya." The red haired guy tells the black haired guy who seemed to be asked on the basics of the game.

"Alright I'm Kirito. Oh? You also interested in wanting to learn?" The guy called Kirito asks Sakore who was watching from around the corner

"Oh sorry, I saw you pass by and thinking you might be a beta tester. I hate asking this but could I get some pointers on how to fight?" He asks "I would really appreciate it."

"Sure, Klein also asked for the basics. How about we go to an open field area I can explain on how to get started." He tells them

"Alright, oh my name is Sakore. Great to meet you both!" He tells them seeing Kirito has a one-handed sword like he does and Klein has a dagger, the trio head to the west fields and they get to a spot with some boars and as they get started Klein gets knocked and hit in the crotch by a boar and he curls up in pain "Oh that smarts…" Sakore has one eye closed after seeing the strike

"Seriously, you know you can't feel any pain…" Kirito reminds Klein and he realizes Kirito is right

"Huh? Oh yeah you're right, sorry habit." Klein gets back up with his HP at Yellow

"Remember what I said? The first move is the most important." Kirito explains to him as Klein groans

"Yeah. That's easy for you to say… but it won't stand still…" he says annoyed

"If you do your initial motion right, and active a sword skill at the right time." Kirito explains as Sakore picks up a rock and takes his stance

"So like this?" He asks as the rock glows a yellow color and throws it hitting the boar on the rear end of it getting it's attention

"Yea you got it, the system pretty much guarantees you'll always hit your target." Kirito says as he draws out his sword making Klein wonder how Sakore did it so easily "here's an easier way to look at it." The boar charges and both Kirito and Sakore moves away as it turns to Kirito and he stops it with his sword "right after you start your move, wait for a little bit. When you feel the skill start to activate. Drive it home!"

"Drive it home?" Klein asks not getting it then it clicks and he takes his stance as his weapons starts glowing starting up a Sword Skill. Kirito smiles and let's his grip go and kicks the boar causing it to go right at Klein. He does a battle cry and strikes the boar causing it's HP to deplete and burst into pieces also pulling up a screen for Exp, Col, and items dropped. Klein yells out in excitement of his accomplishments.

"Congratulations." Kirito compliments him and they high-five "That was nice." he schelthes his sword back into the holster "but that boar's about as weak as slimes in other games are."

"Holy crap you gotta be kidding! I thought that thing was a mid level boss!" Klein tells him

"I would highly doubt that possibility…" Sakore says as they see some boars spawn over on a different hill. Klein tests out doing the sword skill getting the others attention with his amazement.

"Addictive isn't it?" Kirito asks him

"I'll say!" Klein says excited and tests on swinging a bit "so these skills, there's a ton of them like blacksmithing and stuff, right?" Klein continues practicing his swinging and thrusting with Kirito giving him a confirmed answer

"I heard the game has an unlimited number of them. All except for magic." Kirito explains to him

"An RPG without magic? That's a bold decision man!" Klein says doing a sword skill move after finishing his sentence and he was still excited to continue doing more

"So, what do you think? It's kinda fun moving your body as you fight huh?" Kirito asks and Klein turns to him with a grin on his face

"Aw hells yea!" He replies

"You both ready to move on?" Kirito asks them

"You bet! I am eager to get myself ready!" Sakore replies and the trio continue doing some warmups and get leveled up against the wild boars. after a while they are on a hill looking at an amazing view

"When I look around, I can't believe it… we're inside a game bro!" Klein says "Whoever made it is a genius. This thing's amazing makes me glad I was born when I was you know?"

"It's not that big a deal." Kirito tells him

"Cut me some slack, it's my first Full Dive!" Klein replies annoyed

"Never used a NerveGear before today huh?" Kirito asks "This your first time ever?"

"Uh-huh, as soon as I got the money together I rushed out and bought all the hardware to play SAO. Stood in line and scored one of the ten thousand hard copies. Guess you could say I was lucky." Klein tells him

"For me, my dad got me the set as an early present. He knows how much I loved games, so he decided to get me SAO for my first new experience at gaming. Possibly something I would never thought I'd get the chance to play such a game." Sakore explains "However, you Kirito are way luckier to beta-test it! Only like one thousand got to do that!"

"Yea, guess I was lucky." Kirito says rubbing his neck

"Hey, mind if I ask how far you got in the beta?" Klein asks him

"Ah, 2 months and I couldn't get further than Floor 8. But now I can get there within a month easy!" he replies

"Sounds to me you are really into this." Klein says

"Yea, you could say that." Kirito replies drawing out his sword and holding it up looking at it. "During the beta-test, SAO was the only thing on my mind. Day and Night. In this world a single blade can take you wherever you want to go. and even though it's a virtual world I feel more alive here than I ever did in the real world…" he smirks enjoying this and puts his sword back "anyway, you both want to do some more hunting?"

"You know it! But the thing is…" Klein says as his stomach growls "I'm really hungry… I have to log out."

"To bad the food you eat here only satisfies your hunger virtually." Kirito says

"Yeah for reals, that's why I ordered a pizza for 5:30!" Klein tells him

"Wow, you're so prepared." Kirito says surprised

"You know it! Besides the game can wait till I get my pizza on!" Klein says

"I guess…" Kirito says slightly disappointed

"Well I can stay on for longer, my family can come up and tell me when dinner is ready." Sakore explains "Besides, you guys are basically the first friends I made on the first day. It makes me kinda happy in a way." Kirito was unsure about it but both Klein and Sakore made a promise to pay Kirito back for helping them get started. As Kirito and Sakore were about to leave, Klein opened his menu and realized something was off which got their attention

"Where'd the Logout button go?" Klein asks confused

"It should be there." Kirito replies

"... Nope it's not there." Klein tells him

"It should be at the bottom of the Main Menu." Kirito says opening his menu log and going to where there should be a Logout button, however there wasn't one on his. Sakore got worried and opened his menu getting the same result as the other two.

"See? Not there…" Klein says now getting suspicious about this

"Your right it's not…" Kirito replies confused

"On the first day of release from the beta… is there already some bugs here? That's not something you see everyday..." Sakore says worried how is family will react if he couldn't leave the game

"Why don't you just contact the Game Master?" Kirito asks

"Yeah I did that, but he's not picking up." Klein tells him. "do you know if there is another way to logout of this thing?" Kirito thinks on the answer and comes with a grim answer

"No, whenever a player wants to logout of SAO the only way they can do it is by going through the menu." Kirito tells him which is now setting to scare them greatly

"That can't be right! There's gotta be some other way out! Return! Logout! Escape!" Klein tries different methods, but nothing happens.

"Told you so, and there was no emergency logout in the manual either." Kirito says

"So that means we are stuck here until someone comes by and fixes the bug or possibly remove the NerveGear off of us?" Sakore asks worried

"Yeah, it would be the most likely suggestions…" Kirito tells him

"Oh, I live alone…" Klein tells them

"My parents are probably getting home and I have two siblings… they'll probably check up on me when dinner is ready." Sakore explains "But, though is seriously weird right now. This bug is gonna cause problems..."

"This just isn't a bug, it will cause some problems for the game. I wonder if the developers even know what's happening, they could just shut down the server and log everyone out. But why haven't they made an announcement?" Kirito was lost in thought while the other two were scared.

Just then the bell in the town rung possibly signalling something and caused a forced transport into the Town of Beginnings, as the three arrived in town they could see tons of players being brought there also which seems like all the players in the game. The bell stopped ringing and everyone was confused until someone pointed out something in the sky flickering.

"Now what?" Kirito asks and suddenly the whole town was surrounded in a sphere and red ooze was dripping from the barrier and starts to form into something

"What the hell is that thing?" Klein asks, once it finished forming itself it shaped into the Game Master.

"Attention Players, I welcome you to my world." The Game Master tells them

"What's he mean by that?" Kirito asks confused

"My name is Akihiko Kayaba, and as of this moment, I am in control of this world." He says and Sakore and all the other players know that name, as the developer of SAO. What could he want at this moment? "I'm sure most of you have already noticed an item missing from your Main Menus. The Logout button." he then opens a menu "let me assure you, this is not a defect in the game. I repeat this is not a defect. This is how Sword Art Online was meant to be."

"He's… kidding right?" Klein asks and Kirito wasn't sure

"You cannot log yourselves out of SAO. And no one from the outside will be able to shutdown or remove the NerveGear from your head, if anyone attempts to do so a transmitter inside the NerveGear will discharge a microwave signal into your skull destroying your brain, and ending your life." He explains which starts scaring people

"Kirito, please tell me that he is just kidding on that right?" Sakore asks him with a sweat dropping expression

"He's not the transmitter signals in the headgear are just like microwaves… if the safety's disabled it could fry your brain…" Kirito tells him

"Couldn't someone cut the power or…" Klein asks

"That won't work, the NerveGears got an internal battery." Kirito replies and Sakore was deeply frightened

"Despite my warning, the families and friends of some of the players have attempted removing the NerveGear… an unfortunate decision to say the least. As a result, the game now has two hundred and thirteen less players than when it began. They've been both deleted from both Aincraid and the real world." Kayaba explains

"Two hundred and thirteen?!" Kirito asks in disbelief of so many lives been erased

"That can't be… that's impossible…" Sakore says

"As you can see, international media outlets have round the clock coverage of everything… including the deaths." He shows some stuff that has happened and the problems currently happening. "At this point, it's safe to assume the likelihood of a NerveGear being removed is minimal at best. I hope this brings you a little comfort as you try to clear the game." This causes Kirito to grit in anger "It's important to remember the following, there is no longer anyway to revive someone within the game. If your HP drops to 0, your avatar will be deleted from the system forever... And the NerveGear will simotainestly destroy your brain." This causes Sakore to imagine, if his HP dropped to 0 then he will be killed, but deep within he would continue fighting and face the dangers ahead of him like they were now real. "There is only one way to escape now, you must clear the game. Right now you are gathered at Floor 1, the lowest level of Aincraid, if you can get through the dungeon and beat the boss you may advance to the next Floor. Defeat the boss at Floor 100, and you will clear the game."

"We can't clear all 100 Floors… That's freakin' impossible. Even the Beta Testers never made it that high!" Klein yells out

"Last but not least, I placed a little present in the item storage of every player. Please, have a look." Kayaba tells them and Sakore opens his menu and taking out a mirror

"What is this for...?" Sakore asks confused when suddenly all the players were surrounded by a bright flash of light. Once the light died down everyone seemed fine but something big did change them.

"You two alright?" Klein asks them and they turn to see someone different

"Yea, wait… who are you?" Kirito asks

"I'm me, who are you?" Klein asks and Sakore looks at the mirror again and he saw that his avatar changed to his real self with slight light black hair and blue eyes, and seemed to be slightly taller than Kirito whose hair became shorter than his avatar, and Klein's didn't have the long hair but short and spiky.

"Hold on a second…" Sakore says suddenly realizing what happened

"Is that you?!" The three of them ask at the same

"There's a high density signal device inside the NerveGear rig… it can see what my face looks like… but how does it know my height and body type?" Kirito says

"I think it was with the calibration test from the NerveGear… it had us touch our body all over remember?" Sakore reminds him

"Oh yea, your right. That's where it got our physical data." Kirito says

"But… why… why would anyone do this to us?" Sakore asks and Kirito points to Kayaba

"I think he's about to tell us." Kirito tells him

"Right now, you are probably wondering why "Why would Akihiko Kayaba, developer of Sword Art Online and NerveGear do this?" Ultimately my goal was a simple one, the reason I created Sword Art Online was to control the fate of a world of my design." He explains

"Kayaba…" Kirito says with anger

"As you can see, I have achieved my goal." He says "This marks the end of the Tutorial and the official launch of Sword Art Online. Players, I wish you the best of luck." he finishes as the robed figure now disintegrates disappearing and the sphere disappearing

_This is the story of how I, Sakore began in this game, a life and death game called Sword Art Online. In all honesty I was truly frightened by Kayaba's words of us not being able to logout, but now we have to climb all the way up Aincraid to the 100th Floor and defeat the Final Boss. My name is Sakore in the Virtual world… and this is my story of going through Sword Art Online. - Sakore_

_-Crossing Fields Opening-_

**And thus begins the story of how Sakore will traverse through Aincraid, a story told about a guy who works himself long enough to survive this Death game, who will he meet through his journey? Will he be able to conquer along with the others inside the death game? Will they progress up the next Floor? Find out on the next Chapter!**

**Next Time; Beater**


	2. Ep 2 Beater

_Arc 1; Ep 2: Beater_

_-December 2, 2022 Floor 1-_

_It's been over a month since the game began, currently around 2000 players have died. Sadly the First Floor Boss hasn't been located, and I have gotten far in making myself stronger and ready for anything. Especially I haven't heard from Kirito the last time I saw him since he was a Beta Tester... But now there is a meeting being held to fight the First Floor Boss and advance to the next floor._

-Crossing Fields opening-

In the town of Tolbana a small group of players have gathered together at a stage area in town with people chatting. Sakore who has gotten a better sword and gear sits at the top spot of the area wanting to do as much as he can for this. The guy at the center claps his hands to get everyone's attention.

"Ok people! Now that everyone is here, let's get this meeting started!" He tells them and everyone takes a seat to listen to the meeting "So anyway I wanna thank everyone for coming, good to see you. My name is Diavel, and in this game the job I rolled is knight!" some people laugh

"Dude, there's no job system in this game!" a random guy tells him

"You guys wanna hear this or not?" He asks them and they become quiet as Diavel's face becomes serious "right, anyway here's the deal. Our party found the boss room at the top of the tower today." once told every were actually surprised at this. "First, we need to defeat the boss, and make it to Floor 2. The next step is we have to tell everyone waiting in the Town of Beginnings, that it is possible to beat this game! Fact is, it's our duty as the most capable players here! Do you agree, or not?!" the people were silent for a moment then some started clapping in approval to this plan. Sakore smiled with Diavel's speech to the people here. "Okay! Glad to hear you're all with me on this! Now, let's figure out how we're gonna beat the boss. First off, we'll team up into parties of 6!" hearing that made Sakore panic since he wants to help out, however people were already setting up and partying up then to the left he sees Kirito setting up a party with a person in a red cloak covering their face who is about Kirito's height. It was his only chance to pair up with someone, luckily it was someone he knew which was good. He quickly moves over to them.

"Hey there, long time no see." Sakore says getting Kirito's attention

"Oh hey, so you in on taking on the boss?" he asks and Sakore nods "You wanna party for this raid?"

"Yea, since everyone else has done it." Sakore replies and Kirito sends a party invite to him and Sakore accepts it, once he does two HP bars appear below his with the names of the two, and the one at the bottom got his attention "_Asuna… so that's her in the red cloak… almost seems like her actual name possibly… but I'm glad to see a friendly face here."_ he thought, curious about the girl covered in the red cloak

"Alright, looks like everyone's teamed up. Now then-" before Diavel could continue

"Hold up a second!" A guy yells out getting everyone's attention at the top and he leaps down near Diavel looking pretty pissed off "My name's Kiboau got that?!" he tells Diavel "before we take on the boss, I wanna get something off my chest." His tone sounded serious "We all know about the two thousand people that died so far yea? Well some of you need to apologize to them right now!" he points to the crowd and to a few people know who he means.

"Kiboau, I think I know you're referring to, you mean the ones who were ExBeta-testers, right?" Diavel asks understanding the situation

"Course I mean them! The day this stupid ass game started, the beta guys just up and vanished! right?! They ditched all us beginners!" Kiboau shouts out "They snagged all the good hunting spots, and they grabbed all the easy quests too, they were the only ones getting stronger around here. This whole time they ignored us like we're nothing." in Sakore's mind he wants to interrupt Kiboau and disagree on his thoughts. "Hell I bet there's some of them here! Come on out Beta-Testers! We should make them apologize to us, and we should make them give up all their money AND the items they got! They can't expect the party to trust them when they don't trust us! Why should we?" Sakore really wanted to go down there and do something, but someone else decides to speak up

"Can I say something?" A guy with dark skin who looks to be half size taller than Kirito, who is bald with a bit of a beard growing "hey, my name's Agil. Kiboau right? I want to make sure we're on the same page. you say the ExBeta-Testers should be blamed for the rookies deaths, because they didn't help them. And you want them to apologize and give up their winnings. I leave anything out?"

"No, you didn't." he replies to him, and Agil pulls out a small booklet

"The item store hands these out for free. It's a guidebook, you got one didn't you?" Agil asks Kiboau

"Sure I got one, so what about it?" he asks

"You wanna know who was handing these out? The ExBeta-Testers." Agil says which people whisper a bit "Listen up, everyone had equal access to this information, even so lots of players still died. Now I didn't come here to point fingers at anyone. I'm here because I want to learn from those players deaths. I'm here because I want to learn how we're gonna beat the boss!" Kirito sighed glad not to reveal to him being a Beta-Tester. Agil looked back at Kiboau who looked annoyed though he sat down as well as Agil did.

"Ok…" Diavel pulls out his own guide book "Can we get back to the meeting now?" he asks and everyone nodded "for info on the boss, it's all in here. The latest issue of the guidebook you just heard about." people were surprised from this even Kiboau wasn't expecting that. "according to the book, the boss' name is Illfang the Kobold Lord. Also he'll be surrounded by his minions the Ruined Kobold Sentinels. Illfang carries an axe and a buckler, he has four health bars and when the last one turns red he switches to a curved sword type weapon called a Talwar. He can change his patterns of attack too." he finishes and closes the book "that's it for the briefing, as for the distribution of loot, money will be divided equally among everyone. The party that defeats the boss, gets the Exp, and whoever gets an item gets to keep it. Any objections?" none have any problems with what was said "good, we leave tomorrow at 10 in the morning. Meeting adjourned people!" people get up and leave and Sakore sees both Asuna and Kirito leave, he decided to get set up in town for items and rest up for the boss while people take some time to do whatever.

Sakore gets himself a room in a hotel to rest for the day and starts thinking about what happened in the meeting. About how Kiboau dissed the Beta-Testers, even though Kirito taught Sakore the basics, Agil showed respect to the Beta-Testers who wrote the guide book to help the beginners. So much is going to happen the next day, a raid on the First Floor Boss, and hoping to advance to the next floor.

_-Dec 3, 2022 Floor 1 forest fields path to Labyrinth-_

The next day the large raid group is making their way to the Labyrinth where the Floor boss resides, and Sakore with both Kirito and Asuna talking about their strategy with taking on the boss.

"Let's go over it again. We're the backup, so our targets are gonna be the Boss' minions, the Ruined Kobold Sentinels." Kirito tells them

"I know…" Asuna replies

"I'll use a Sword Skill to knock their weapons up out of the way. When I do switch and jump in." Kirito tells them

"Right…" Sakore replies

"What's a switch?" Asuna asks and the two guys look at her

"Ok level with me, is this your first time you've ever been in a party?" Kirito asks her and she nods confirming it making Kirito sigh and Sakore placing a hand over his face

"_Girls… they aren't much of gamers… though this is rare to see a lot playing games… unlike my sister…"_ Sakore says in his thoughts thinking about his family now

The raid party gets to the top of the labyrinth and now at the door to the boss room. Ready to head in.

"Listen up everyone… I've only got one thing to say to you. Let's win!" Diavel tells them to encourage the group "Come on!" he places a hand on the door pushing it open to reveal a large hallway into a throne room and at the end red eyes glowed signalling it to be the boss. The raid group moves forward cautiously until the room lights causing the boss to leap right in front of the group showing the name "Illfang the Kobold Lord" along with 4 health bars appearing and summon its minions. They enemies charge forth at the group "Commence attack!" Diavel commands and everyone runs in and begins the battle. Diavel commands the squads fighting the boss and have the others take on the minions.

"Switch!" Kirito knocks the weapon from one minion and Asuna charges at it with her rapier

"I'm on it!" she tells him and the two boys were amazed with how quick she struck the enemy

"Damn she isn't half bad." Sakore says impressed

"Right on…" Kirito says also impressed and the trio continue taking on the minions as the other groups fight the boss bringing its HP to the last bar and now at Red. It was now anger and tosses away the current equipment it held.

"Good, it's almost down. Just a bit more left until we win." Sakore says and Diavel decides to face it head on, and the boss pulls out it's new weapon and both Kirito and Sakore looked at it and noticed something different "_Wait a second! That isn't a Talwar, that's a Nodachi! This isn't like the beta!"_

"Wait stop! It's no good! Get outta there!" Kirito yells out as the boss leaps around and heavily strikes Diavel greatly and strikes again

"Diavel no!" Kiboau shouts out scared as the boss lands right next to them roaring as Kirito goes over to give a potion to him, but he pushed it away telling Kirito something and bursts into pieces making that last moment his death.

"No…" Sakore couldn't believe what he saw happen, a person killed in battle. How could he protect himself when other lives are also at stake, in his mind he had thought about only trying to survive, but there are others who need support as well. "I won't let another person die… We'll kill the boss right now!"

"Then back us up! Let's do this!" Kirito tells him as he and Asuna charge forth "We'll hit him just like we did with the minions!"

"Then I'll take lead!" Sakore tells them and runs forward and the boss sees them coming towards him and readys an attack and launches at Sakore as he readies a sword skill and collides knocking the weapon away "Switch!" he tells Asuna and she runs at the boss however the guys notice the boss going to strike her

"Asuna!" Kirito says her name and she avoids the strike only having her cloak shredded showing her long orange hair and hazel eyes. She readies herself and thrusts her rapier knocking the boss away and they were amazed, however the boss got their attention again "He's coming back!" Kirito goes in and rebounds again having Asuna strike again, then Kirito clashes but he gets rebounded and struck knocking him and Asuna down almost bringing Kirito's HP in the Yellow. The boss got near them and was about to finish them over

"You stay the hell away!" Sakore shouts as he and Agil rebounded the strike keeping the two safe and everyone else charges forward

"We can hold this bastard off till your health's back up!" Agil tells Kirito

"You got it." Kirito says and both Agil and Sakore go in to keep the boss busy to keep it defending until it knocks them away and about to clean sweep them all. "Watch out!" Kirito gets back up and readies a sword skill "You're going down!" he strikes the boss causing it to fall to the ground "Come on Asuna, Sakore! Help me beat this sucker! One last attack!"

"You got it!" Asuna replies

"Right behind you!" Sakore replies and the trio charge throwing multiple attacks and Kirito does a diagonal strike making it the final blow making the boss burst into pieces, and a Congratulations appears signaling the Floor boss being defeated and everyone cheers in excitement. The lights turn off and an info screen tells Kirito of getting the last attack bonus giving him a piece of equipment.

"Nice job." Asuna compliments him

"That was some fine swordsmanship. Congratulations. Todays victory is all thanks to you." Agil tells him though Kirito didn't feel like wanting to be congratulated, and people were cheering for him until

"Stop cheering!" Kiboau yells out getting everyone's attention "Why'd you do it huh? Why'd you let Diavel die?!"

"Let him die…" Kirito says

"That's what I said, admit it you knew the technique the boss was gonna use! You could've told us! Then Diavel would have stand a chance! He wouldn't have to die!" Kiboau shouts angry and people started talking a bit

"I know why he knew! He use to be a Beta-Tester! Think about it, he knew the boss' attack patterns, he knew! But he kept it from us!" A random player says "And I bet he's not the only Beta-Tester here, come on show yourselves!" now this was starting into a commotion where everyone is now doubting the Beta-Testers being all friendly to others. Sakore had to do something, what could he do

"Hey, calm down." Agil starts saying and Kiboau didn't seem to want to listen to him until Kirito started laughing suddenly

"So you guys think I use to be a Beta Tester… it's not cool to put me in the same class with those noobs." Kirito tells him which confused a lot of people and Sakore also

"W-What'd you say?!" Kiboau asked him

"You heard me, most of the thousand people who score a slot in SAO's beta were rookies." Kirito says which had Sakore figure out he is taking the blame instead of the others. "They were so green, they didn't even know how to level up… hell even you guys were better than they were." this was making Kiboau frightened of him "but me, I'm nothing like those guys man. During the Beta I made it to floors that were higher than any of the other testers! That's a fact, I knew about the boss cause I fought tons of monsters with way more sword skills on higher floors! I know a bunch of other things too, more than you can imagine… more than any info broker."

"W-What the hell…? If that's true then you're worse than a Beta-Tester, you're a goddamn cheater that's what you are!" Kiboau says

"He's a Beta-Tester and a Cheater! He's a Beater!" a random player shouts out

"A Beater. Yea that's good, I like it." Kirito says enjoying this and making others scared of him "Ok, you can call me a Beater, just don't mix me up with one of those Beta-Testers anymore." he equips the new item which is a black cloak and heads toward the path to the 2nd Floor and Sakore gets the message -Your Party has been Disband-

"_I know he won't let others die, and I'll do the same as much as I can. I will prepare myself for upcoming fights that I'll get into."_ Sakore says in his thoughts making his path to Floor 2 and continues onward

**Floor 1 has been cleared, and now there comes the Assault Team which will be the Front Liners to take on the Floors Bosses and any Field Bosses. Sakore has himself as a member of the Assault Team along with some people he meets. How far will they be able to reach while team continues passing, Kirito has gone solo as Sakore tries his best to help out. What will he do on the Floors above? Find out in the next chapter! (There will be characters seen here that weren't in the Anime but were the games. This will be some girls having some feelings on Sakore like how the other girls were into Kirito.)**

**Next Time; The Treasure Hunter**


	3. Ep 3 Treasure Hunter

_Arc 1; Ep 3: The Treasure Hunter_

_-February 20, 2023 Floor 17-_

_Two months later and now we are reaching up to the 20's. We have gotten really far in only a few months. Right at this point I decided to take a rest after the last boss raid since we fought with everything we got, and now there is a guild called the Aincraid Liberation Force. Worst thing is that Kiboau, the guy who has a hate over the Beta-Testers is part of that guild, I swear that guy is gonna be getting so many killed if they just force they're way onward through the Floors. At this point I decided to rest and later explore other spots that could be good to get some levels, and it would be when I meet her._

-Crossing Fields Opening-

In the town of Floor 17 Sakore returned from a Boss raid clearing Floor 20, now reaching Floor 21. His current equipment is a dark blue cloak, a white shirt, black and silver pants and boots, his current sword is a metallic sword with some decent amount of stats. He enters the hotel he rented a room from and was about to go upstairs.

"Well hello, looks like you've been busy." a female voice spoke behind him and he looks to see a girl he met from the previous floors who wears a brown cloak and has lines like whiskers on her cheeks

"Oh Argo, didn't expect to see you." He says walking to the table she is at

"Well I thought I might ask something from you that might interest you." she tells him

"What? You have something interesting you found? I know you are good at getting info, since you are an Info Broker." He says curious

"Well I don't know much about it, but there have been rumors of a special dungeon on Floor 18 that gives a special item, possibly either equipment or an item. I told this to a girl who might be interested, but I'm kinda worried I might have put her in danger for going to a higher floor." Argo explains to him

"Why not ask Kirito or Asuna to do this?" Sakore asks her

"I'm sure they would like to, however they are currently busy with looking for the next Boss for the Assault Team. So I had only you to choose from." She explains "I'm sure she'll go to the dungeon by morning cause the dungeon only stays opening in daylight."

"I never heard of a dungeon that opens during a certain time of day. Although there are games where you have to activate quests like that. So when would you like me to head out for tomorrow?" Sakore asks her

"Hmm I think in the morning, if you can, maybe you'll take on the dungeon together. It is said there is a treasure but no one has even found it at all." Argo tells him which makes him really curious

"Maybe there is a secret hidden path that hasn't been found yet. Or there is a puzzle inside that needs to be solved." Sakore suggests

"I'd tell you, however the person who told me this has not found any secret whatsoever. Maybe you can find something that they couldn't, also if you find the girl she will want to find the treasure so bring her along ok?" Argo tells him and he sighs

"Alright, by tomorrow I'll go and search for this dungeon on the 18th Floor." Sakore tells her

"Thanks Sakore-kun, if you find anything else please let me know." Argo tells him and gives the location of where the dungeon entrance is on Floor 18. "You know you are one of the first people who respect us Beta-Testers even though with what people talk about us."

"I'm not really that kind of person. Not everyone deserves to be blamed from something they never didn't, and I have gotten far thanks to Kirito's teachings." Sakore says

"I'll tell him you said that. Anyway, see you later." Argo says and heads outside the hotel and Sakore goes up to his room and gets some rest for tomorrow.

_-February 21, 2023 Floor 18 Fields-_

Once morning rose Sakore already heads onward to the field area outside of town and looking for that special dungeon Argo talked about.

"She said that she told someone about this also, I wonder who it is…" Sakore got his answer when he sees a girl defending herself against monsters. He could see in the distance that she might have fought them for a short while. "I better help her quickly before more of them arrive." He draws his sword and goes towards where the girl is taking on the two beast monsters. She had gotten the monsters down a small bit of HP but her struggle only got her to barely Yellow.

"No, I gotta keep going. I want to find the secrets of that dungeon…" the girl says holding her dagger weapon as one of the beasts was going to attack and she was ready, however the monsters burst. Sakore was the one to finish them off and she wasn't expecting someone else to be here also. "What do you want?" she takes stance about to fight him

"Whoa! Chill please, I'm not here to harm you… I just thought you might need some help." Sakore tells her, she has dandelion short hair with blue eyes, wearing a blue jacket, with a blue and brown shirt underneath, blue and black skirt (This isn't her original outfit in HF, but lower gear. She will get her new gear when the 70s have been reached.) "Are you looking for that special dungeon Argo told you about?"

"You know Argo?" she asks and puts her weapon away as does Sakore

"Yea, she told me that she told someone about the dungeon and was worried she might have put them in danger because of a higher floor." Sakore explains to her

"Yea she told me, course I was only looking to see if there was any treasure inside." She tells him

"I see, well maybe I can help you out. It would be easier with another person along." Sakore tells her which she thinks about it for a moment

"Yeah you do have a point, I'm not really much of a fighter. I'm Philia, by the way." She tells him

"Sakore, let's party together and explore this dungeon." he says and sends an invite to party together and she accepts the invitation and her HP bar appears under his HP bar as she drinks a potion to restore her HP. "alright, let's go and see this special dungeon and find anything that was missed." the two move forward to a mountain a short distance away

"_He doesn't seem like a bad person, although he does seem interested about that special dungeon."_ Philia thought to herself as they reach the dungeon entrance "This is the one, each person only said there was a small amount of monsters and nothing else, however with me working on my treasure hunting abilities I think I should be able to detect traps of any kind."

"That is something special to you. In other ways, people are special in their own ways." Sakore tells her as they encounter some small monsters "A girl who likes the excitement of opening treasure chests and what it contains." they slay the monsters and take a tunnel deep in the dungeon

"You aren't just trying to get me to be swayed by your comments are you?" She asks him and he blushes

"N-No! I am only just admiring your determination of seeking something special in them!" He tells her slightly embarrassed

"Hehe, I'm only teasing you." Philia tells him giggling cutely "You get embarrassed easily." Sakore looked away not wanting to show his expression. The two continue looking around the place until they get a large room area

"Is this the end of it? I guess the info Argo was told about was true… but there has to be something we are missing…" Sakore says looking around and Philia feels the walls for possibly a way to trigger a secret path, but she couldn't find anything

"Maybe this is a dead end… was there another path near the entrance?" Philia asks

"I don't think I saw one… though I don't know how there could be nothing in this dungeon. I guess we go back and tell Argo we still couldn't find anything." Sakore says "We have been here for a long while lets head back before-" when he took his next step a spot opens up below them and they fall down and Sakore grabs Philia quickly and they land with Sakore on the bottom who gave Philia a soft landing "ow…"

"Sakore! Are you alright!?" She asks him concerned seeing his HP dropped to Yellow and getting off him

"I'm good… though I wasn't expecting the floor to open below us…" He tells her groaning from the long fall they had

"I couldn't detect it… maybe my searching skill wasn't high enough to detect it, I'm sorry…" Philia apologizes to him

"Don't be, although it looks like we won't be getting out now… though I don't think there was a hole in the ceiling before from where we were." Sakore says looking up above and noticing a hole and Philia looks to see it also

"Strange, I wonder why though…" Philia says curiously

"For now it looks like we'll have to wait here until then." Sakore tells her and sets a campfire for them to stay warm. He gets two potions from his pockets giving one to Philia and he drinks the other to restore his HP back to full. Philia looks at him. "this doesn't seem to be an area where monsters spawn so it'll be good to rest."

As the duo rest by the campfire from above it started to get dark and it was becoming colder so Philia made an assumption to sit next to Sakore for warmth and he didn't mind at all. Philia secretly admired Sakore for being there for someone in need, and having him help her out with something wasn't what she expected.

"Hey… how do you feel about this? Being stuck inside a dungeon along with a girl?" She asks him

" Well… honestly I'm unsure what to say about that. As long we stay alive, I'll make sure we'll get out of this place alive." Sakore tells her and while it is dark suddenly around them on the walls symbols glow around them

"Huh? what in the heck?" Philia asks confused "Wait a moment... are these the constellations of the…"

"The 12 Zodiac… all around the wall of this whole room… and there seems to be panels below them… could this be a secret of this dungeon?" Sakore asks standing up

"Do you think we have to press them in a certain order?" Philia asks and Sakore touches the panel under Capricorn however the constellation turned red and a monster appeared in the center and Sakore quickly disposed of it quickly.

"That didn't work… Capricorn starts in the first month… or… maybe it is…" He goes over and presses the panel under Gemini and it turns green this time. "it's the order of when they are revealed by month at night in the sky. So we press in this order…" they press the panels until all of them light up green and in the center stairs formed to a lower level "Could we have found it?!"

"Yay treasure here we come!" Philia says excitedly to find some treasure and they go down the stairs and get to an area where above them, they see the ceiling shows the stars and up ahead was a knight wielding a 2-handed sword.

"You have found the secrets of the Astral chambers. Face me, Stellar the Knight of the Stars, to claim your first reward!" the knight said and lifted his sword as three Health bars appear

"Eh?! We have to fight a boss?!" Philia asks as Sakore pulls his sword out

"We might have to, and I believe we just found the real secret to this dungeon." Sakore tells her and he charges in and clashes blades with the knight and Philia came to the side and struck quickly getting out of the way and Sakore moving back from a heavy swing attack. Sakore then starts with a sword skill and rebounds the knight "Philia switch!" giving her the opening her dagger glows doing a stab causing the 1st HP bar to go down to the center and the knight was about to turn and attack her, but Sakore goes in doing a sword skill causing the HP droppage to the second bar.

"That was close!" Philia says and Sakore clashes with the knight and he strikes again.

"This guy is pretty tough!" Sakore says dodging another swing attack

"We can do this, I might not be much of a fighter." Philia says

"No worries, I'll take him head on and you strike." Sakore tells her and he goes in dodging a horizontal swing and strikes diagonally then rebounds the sword for Philia to strike, but this time she gets struck back causing her HP to drop greatly "Philia! That's it, you are done for!" Sakore charges a sword skill and strikes doing a heavy amount of damage and continues until finally he gets the HP down all the way causing the knight to burst into pieces. "Philia! Are you alright?" He asks and gets a potion out for her and has her drink it

"Y-yeah, I just… I didn't react fast enough to dodge." She tells him after finishing up the potion

"You have done well in the trial of the Stars warriors, now as promised the gift of the Stars." The voice spoke up and both were given an item acquired menu listing two items -Greaves of the Stars- and -Medallion of the Stars-

"Is that really it?" Philia asks slightly disappointed

"Seek the knights of the Moon and Sun, for only then the true warriors of the Astral and receive greater rewards." The voice ended

"Oh, so this isn't over?" Sakore asks and both of them get a quest acceptance screen -Knights of the Astral world- "so that makes sense, this is a quest line."

"So there might be more to come? Then we will have to search more for the last two knights." Philia says now excited again "and they must lead to a great treasure that is soon to come!"

"Let's return to Argo, she might want to hear about this." Sakore tells her as a hidden staircase opens to the outside once again and they get to town and explain to Argo about what they have done.

"I see, so there was a hidden path that need to be shown when it was night time, then it led to one of these Astral Knights. Defeating the knight of the Stars must have only caused the quest to start since it wouldn't be out in the open." Argo says understanding what she was told

"If I am right, then possibly the other two knights might be up in the higher floors. Looks like the Assault team will have to clear more floors until we find another dungeon that leads to the other Astral Knights." Sakore suggests

"Seems to be that way, oh and speaking of them they are about to start having the 21st Floor boss meeting, might wanna hurry and get into it before you miss it." Argo tells him

"Already?! Well I better hurry and get myself ready!" Sakore says

"Your part of the Assault team?" Philia asks

"Oh yea, I haven't really mentioned it since we were exploring and such." Sakore says

"Thanks for the info, I'll make sure to let you both know if I find anything about the Astral Knights." Argo tells them and leaves

"I better get going also, it was nice exploring with you Philia." Sakore says and notices she has a sad look on her "what? Is something bothering you?"

"Sakore… since you are part of the Assault team… please return safely." She tells him and he was surprised to hear her say that

"I will, have no worries. I'll be sure to let you know I'm alright." He tells her which gave her some comfort and smiled, the next thing she did really surprised him. Giving a kiss on his cheek.

"Alright, then once you finish up just go ahead and message me!" She tells him and runs off "see you later!" He placed a hand where she kissed him and blushed deeply

_"Never would I ever expect myself to get kissed on the cheek by a girl…"_ he said in his thoughts and smiled slightly _"I will survive for everyone's sake and for those I meet."_ He heads to the teleport gate now going to Floor 21 for the boss meeting

**There you have it, Sakore and Philia discovered something in a special dungeon and also seem to learn there is more to this story. Also I am gonna do Lost Song and HR for this story to make it completely different, those will be after the Old ALO Arc, Strea will be very later in the story. For other female characters that were in the games I am unsure if they should be into Sakore, with Yuuki I am seriously going to have things change big time, I am not gonna spoil anything with her but you all will be happy I would do this (she is my most favorite SAO girl in the anime). What will happen for the Assault team later? Find out later!**

**Next Time; Knight's Oath**


	4. Ep 4 Knight's Oath

_Arc 1; Ep 4: Knight's Oath_

_-March 31, 2023, Floor 25-_

_After the day of exploring with Philia in the dungeon of one of the Astral Knights, I believed the medallion we were given was gonna be part of something much bigger than what we did. The boots equipment we were given had some pretty decent stats on them, the strangest thing was the stats increased when reached the 24th floor, meaning the equipment will raise up and possibly needed for something later on. I know it seemed odd for this to happen but I am curious what we would get through this quest. For now our only problem is taking on the First Quarter Floor Boss, I believe we might deal with a powerful enemy this time._

-Crossing Fields opening-

It was almost the afternoon and Sakore has rent up a room for the night and looked at the progress through the fields. They were able to learn about where the boss room is at, they had the boss strategy meeting set for tomorrow.

"We have gotten through a whole quarter of Aincraid, and planning our strategy in the fight." He says to himself and looks through his items "oh crap I'm out of potions and healing crystals." he gets up and leaves the inn and goes to the store to fill up on healing items, and then he goes to the smithing shop and upgrades his sword once to make it stronger. As he goes on his way towards the hotel. A conversation was going on and it seemed serious.

"Is it true what you saw? That the Liberation army is heading towards the labyrinth?" One guy asks another which made Sakore stop in his tracks.

"Yea, while I was out on the fields I saw a large group of the army along with Kiboau. I believe they were heading towards where the boss is at." The other guy explains

"Well that just makes it their death wish without a plan." A third guy tells them and Sakore couldn't just sit still while a large group no idea what they will be fighting

"I gotta message the others quickly! We have to hurry!" Sakore says to himself messaging Kirito, Asuna, and Klein about what is going on and asking to have the Holy Dragon Alliance to assist in the matter. After a while all of them were assembled and are making their way to the boss room in the labyrinth

"Those idiots! Do they really think they can go in and fight the boss head on?!" Klein asks in his new samurai style armor as well as his buddies

"We better make it as quickly as we can before they are completely wiped out." Kirito tells him as they all get inside the labyrinth and hurry to the boss they can already hear screams as they get close to the boss room

"Those damn idiots can't do anything right if they don't prepare themselves!" Asuna says as they finally get to the opened doors to the boss room and they see the group of soldiers fighting against the boss -Armoros the Armored Ox- A large Ox standing on its hind legs wielding two large Axe weapons with metallic armor, swings one of the axes and struck multiple of them which has a few of them be killed

"You guys are damn idiots!" Sakore yells at them

"Buzz off! We don't need your help!" Kiboau shouts at him though Sakore just ignored him

"Alright, Kirito, Asuna, Klein, help me distract the boss!" Sakore tells the trio and they draw out their weapons as Klein's buddies go to the other soldiers as the four strike and get the boss' attention. "this guy is gonna be hard to beat." they dodge a swing from the boss

"It barely took any damage." from what Klein says is true, only a small amount of HP has been depleted from the first bar it has.

"That armor it has on must gave it really high defence. We would need to see if it has a weak spot." Kirito says dodging a swing and striking the arm. The four went to work as the HDA members watch the attack patterns and block any incoming attacks, They were able to get far enough to knock it to it's second HP bar. "Look out!" before Sakore could get Kirito's warning he saw he was getting targeted by the boss with another swing, he didn't have time to react to stop it, but someone else interrupts the attack with a large shield.

"Who are you?" Sakore asks the man that saved him

"My name is Heathcliff. I am glad I have made it in time, now allow me to assist in eliminating the boss." He says, which Sakore wasn't expecting someone new to arrive but accepted his help

"Alright, we just need to find someway to take this thing down quickly." Sakore tells the others and Klein strikes the leg and the boss seemed stunned and fell to one knee seeming to be unable to do anything "huh?"

"It's seems to be stunned, attack and we might be able to take it out!" Kirito tells them and the 5 fighters attack the boss with everything they got and brought it to it's last bar before it got back up and roared angrily as it swung its axes wildly barely giving them a chance to strike it at all

"Damn why don't you just sit still for once!" Sakore shouts dodging the swings as Heathcliff is blocking as much as he can then Sakore gets an opening and moves quickly to leap and actually struck the neck of the boss and the HP drops quickly bringing it down and it shines then bursts showing -Congratulations- having the 25th Floor completed and now opening the path to Floor 26.

"Finally it's over. I thought we were gonna be here for a lot longer." Klein says annoyed

"You just had to butt in and take everything! You are one annoying bastard!" Kiboau shouts at them

"More to saving your ass, you brought a large amount and what it looks like you more than likely got half of your damn squad eliminated!" Sakore yells at him upset and Kiboau just stood there. "for now it looks like we are done here, so now time to head back to town. As well as telling the leader of your actions." Kiboau cursed under his breath as they return to town as the Leader of the army found out about what happened and as well as downgrading of being apart of the Assault team.

"I'd like to make an announcement to everyone here." The man called Heathcliff gets everyone's attention "I am going to start up a guild as of today called The Knights of the Blood Oath. If any one of you wish to join you are free to do so, that is all." he says and goes to the teleport gate and heads to the next floor

"He was an amazing swordsman, but something about that guy seems…" Sakore whispers under his breath curious about the new person that showed up right in the middle of the boss fight. However he was too tired to think about anything and went back to the inn to rest up after so long.

**Sorry the chapter was short, I didn't have much to have happen.**

**And so a fourth of Aincraid has been cleared. A new guild has begun, and would Sakore join it? Alright so I am planning for Philia, Yuuki, Strea to be into Sakore, I am unsure for Rain, and Seven. I was thinking of adding an OC later probably, also I want your opinions since both Kirito and Rain have Dual Blades, do you want Sakore to get the special Dual Blades one day for this story? Leave reviews if you want that to happen, he might get it in HR story arc. So thanks for enjoying and anticipated for future chapters.**

**Next Time; Tower of the Moon**


	5. Ep 5 Tower of the Moon

_Arc 1; Ep 5; Tower of the Moon_

_-March 6, 2024 Floor 56: Pani-_

_A year has passed and now with the new guild called the Knights of the Blood Oath. When that guild was formed it gained so many people, plus after that we started clearing floors and reached past halfway already. One person who is Asuna, has joined the guild and also became second in command of the guild. Kirito has been called "The Black Swordsman" and Asuna now called "Lightning Flash". I haven't gotten a title of my own, however I just think I wouldn't need to worry about being popular among all of us. Currently right now I am in the 56th Floor Boss meeting with Asuna in charge of the plan._

In the strategy meeting for battling the 56th Floor boss there were many people around, those people being Kirito, Asuna, Sakore, KoB members, HDA members, Klein and his team, as well as Agil. Asuna slammed her hand on the stone with the map getting everyone's attention.

"Lure it to the village! That's how we get the boss." she announces to them and some people were surprised at her plan

"Wait! You can't be serious, if we do then the boss will go after the villagers!" Kirito tells her

"Yes, that's the idea. And while the boss is busy killing NPCs, we can attack it and kill it." She explains

"But their not just objects, NPCs are different than rocks and trees! Look they're-" Kirito was going to continue but gets interrupted

"You think they're alive? Really?" She asks unamused and he was taken back speechless "in this game they are just objects, and unlike us if they are killed they can always respawn." **(When she finds out the truth in HR, boy will she regret saying that)**

"Sorry, but I'm not cool with it." Kirito replies to her and she glares at him standing straight

"I'm running this operation, ok? In case you forgot, I'm still second-in-command of the Knights of the Blood Oath. You'll obey my orders, like it or not." she tells him and it felt like sparks were flying from their eyes unagreeing with the other. After the meeting was over Sakore wanted to talk to Asuna for a bit, but with her attitude after her argument with Kirito he went against it and left the room and see Kirito and Agil chatting.

"You and the Second-in-Command, you're always getting into it and not in a good way." Agil says to him with a grin

"I guess we just don't click Agil." Kirito tells him

"Really? How can you tell?" Sakore asks sarcastically with his eyes half opened

"Well she took my advice." Kirito says "but who knew she'd join the top guild, and be a floor clearing badass."

-Crossing fields opening-

-April 22, Floor 59-

Next month the Assault Team reached through 3 more floors, Sakore obtained the Iron Steel Blade from the Floor 53 boss drop. his gear is similar to Kirito's with the colors being Dark Blue and Midnight blue colors for Sakore's. He is currently resupplying his items and going to do some leveling out in the fields when a special someone called out to him.

"Hey Sakore!" a familiar voice calls out to him and he sees Philia running over to him. She also looked happy to have found him.

"Philia! Hey long time no see, sorry I haven't been able to chat much. With the assault team now having to reach the higher floors quickly, I always gotta prepare myself at times when needed." He explains to her

"Oh that's fine, however I got big news. Argo has just gotten a lead on the next part for the Astral Quest!" She tells hims

"Oh? Has she? Then you ready to party and take on the next part of this special quest?" Sakore asks and they party once again, with Philia being really excited

"Argo told me that a tower has appeared on the 42nd Floor. Since it is in the afternoon, this is a perfect time to enter the tower since it can only open when it is Nighttime." Philia explains to him

"Well Astral represents Sun, Moon, and Stars. Then I am guessing we are about to take on the Knight of the Moon." Sakore says "Let's go find this tower."

-Floor 42 Lake Shore, Eclipse Tower-

As the pair reach the entrance of the black tower it starts becoming night and the door starts vanishing signalling they can now enter it. Before they could a menu screen popped open signalling a quest to start.

"Another quest? What do we have to do?" Philia asks as Sakore reads the info

"It looks like the tower is a big area, the Knight of the Moon is at the top. However it is locked and we would need to find a special key to open the path to him. It has 5 dungeon floors, where the last being where the Knight is and we have to clear some puzzles to fight a strong enemy for one of the pieces." Sakore explains to her

"This could be a long while." Philia says and they go into the tower. Once they go in they could barely see much except with the blue flames lit on torches. "This looks Ominous here…" the two continue forward to a door and Sakore looked to the left seeing 5 torches lined up oddly. Once they go through the door they are brought into a maze area. "Looks like we have a maze area, let's get through this!" The two try going through the maze and Sakore notices two doors where they took the left door and they were suddenly where they started "What the? Did we go back to where he started?" They closed the door then heard something from behind the door and Sakore opens the door again and see the room they first went through. "What the?! It just changed, what is going on?"

"Wait a minute…" Sakore looks at the torches and remembers the two doors on the other side. "Oh I get it! This is the first puzzle, even if we go through the door we would be brought back here. Though we go through the doors in a certain pattern." They move through the maze again and go through the doors as planned and they got to a different room with an enemy with stairs behind it.

"Wow you were right!" Philia says amazed

"Let's take on the monster first so we can continue onward." Sakore tells her and they take on the monster and defeat it easily and it drops a plate with a picture of the New Moon. "This is the first one, now let's go upward." They go up the stairs and once they got to the next floor there were four areas with monsters and up ahead was the second enemy but there was no path to it and the four spots with not very strong monsters they solve the puzzle that gave them pieces to make a path to the next enemy and take it down gaining the second one. They take the stairs upward to the third floor of the tower, once getting to the floor a ghost person was in front of them and there was no floor, it was all black. Although the ghost moved in a strange path when Sakore realized the path is possibly invisible or they have to take a correct path and they follow the same path and get to the room with the next enemy and they were able to take it down. With that being cleared they go upstairs and go through the door leading in a large square room that has a small amount of water with a little island in the center with a tree and a door on the other side **(If you know what this area references to, extra points to you.)**

"There is the door, but isn't there supposed to be a tough enemy in here?" Philia asks as the two walk over to the door across the small island and stopping halfway passed the island seeing the door sealed by a symbol "nothing, that is odd…"

"Why does this seem familiar?" Sakore asks and suddenly looks down to see if his reflection can be seen. However there was no reflection of him or Philia making him realize the place and draw out his sword and Philia looked at him confused until they looked behind them to see two black shadow figures of both of them and names appeared over the two -Dark Player- with the red cursor and a health bar. "Looks like we are fighting clones of ourselves."

"This is crazy!" Philia says as the two clones run towards them and they have their weapons ready and block their clones attack. "Having to fight myself is strange!" She continues blocking her clones attacks

"Just stay focused, your clone knows everything you have learned for battle so try to outsmart yourself!" Sakore tells her as he blocks an attack from his clone. He rebounds and does the Horizontal Square sword skill getting the HP of his clone down a bit though his clone hits with a Slant and does a big amount of damage _"damn at this rate I might have a difficult time to try and beat a copy of myself!"_ Sakore and his clone continued clashing blades hoping to strike the other. Sakore was able to strike getting his clone down to yellow though he got hit getting his HP barely to yellow. It almost seemed to be a stalemate between the two. However what wasn't expected was Philia attacking his clone from behind.

"Sakore, finish off my clone it's almost finished while I'll distract yours!" She tells him and sees her HP at Yellow and he looks seeing her clone in red going after her. Sakore decided to be quick going at her clone and use a Slant causing it to not be able to defend in time which it's HP drops down completely and it bursts. Once done he turns to where Philia is facing his clone and sees Philia at red which caused him to hurry and use a new sword skill to get a full his on his clone which brought the HP gauge all the way down and causes the clone to burst into pieces. Once the clones were finished the room changes to a basic room inside the tower and the seal on the door disappears and they get the last piece.

"Philia are you alright?" He asks her giving her a potion to restore her HP. Deeply inside he was worried that he almost lost her.

"Yea, it was a close call getting hit." She tells him and she drinks the potion to get fully healed. "Well luckily we got through the four floors so let's go up and take on the Knight of the Moon." Sakore was worried about how this will go, so he makes a promise to protect her.

They get to the top floor seeing a floor panel of the different shades of the moon however there were only four empty spots, the pieces they obtained were of the floor panel, they put the Full Moon, two Half Moons, and New moon in the slots causing the area to change making it all brighter and on one side was a knight in silver armor wielding an Axe weapon.

"Congratulations warriors. You have reached up to the top of the Eclipse Tower. Now your challenge is me, Lunar the Knight of the Moon." it spoke lifting the weapon, having the name appear and three health bars also

"Alright Philia, you ready to take on the second one?" Sakore asks her as they draw out their weapons.

"Yup, and I am pumped to get to the end of this!" She says and Sakore takes the first go charging at the knight who goes for a vertical attack when Sakore got close, but he knew using a heavy weapon like that can strike slow at times so he was able to dodge it and strike it. The knight goes for another swing though Sakore rebounded it having Philia go in and stab their opponent doing damage, with the attack patterns they were able to fend off against the Knight and defeat him.

"Well done warriors, you have cleared the trials of the Moon and Stars. Seek the Knight of the Sun to claim the last piece of the path to become Astral Warriors." The knight spoke and they get the Moon Medallion and a piece of equipment for the top part of their figure -Coat of the Moonlight-

"And that clears part two of our Astral quest." Sakore says and the extra quest of the Eclipse Tower says it has been completed and gives the two a decent amount of Col and Exp.

"We're almost done, oh boy I can barely contain my excitement!" Philia says happily. "I've enjoyed this adventure with you Sakore, you really are an amazing guy."

"I wouldn't think I'm that good." He replies while blushing from her compliment. "But anyway, looks like we can go and give Argo the news for this." The two return to town explaining the current events that happened and will soon find the Astral Quest finally coming to an end.

**That is that chapter, so the next one is going to finish the Astral Quest for where Sakore gets his own title. I got reviews of you guys wanting him to get Dual Blades. That will be in the Lost Song Arc when starts getting set for the skill. Also do you want Sakore to have a rival when he begins starting ALO? If you do tell me in the comments what you want his rival to wield as his weapon, and give out name suggestions and what race he could be, credits to what sounds good for name and race. Anyway thanks to my readers enjoying my SAO story while my MDGVII is on Hiatus until I get more Poll votes in.**

**Next Time; the Astral Swordsman**


	6. Ep 6 The Astral Swordsman

_Arc 1; Ep 6; the Astral Swordsman_

_-June 28, 2024, Floor 50-_

_After a month has passed of my journey with Philia from the Eclipse Tower and gaining the second piece to finishing the Astral Quest, the Assault team has reached the 63rd Floor. I have gotten a place to rest on this Floor same with Kirito. Also that I am able to give some unused items to Agil who runs a shop on the floor. Later I was bound to find out that me and Philia were gonna end the quest of the Astral Knights._

-Crossing Fields opening-

Inside the room that Sakore rented he had learned of a few things that seemed to be on his mind, Kirito and Asuna were starting to get along a bit after that one argument that seemed like they would almost fight to see which was the better one. A few days ago Asuna has told Sakore that Kirito got a new sword, but he strangely hasn't used it at all. Sakore wanted to find out why such things were happening, but of course he has to stay focused for the battles coming up. He then looks through his menu and sees some of the items he got as rare drops and find some that could be useful to a shopkeeper he knows in town. So he gets up and leaves the hotel going to a place he knows of. Plus he has new gear on but still hasn't gotten a better sword than his current one and he hopes to find a way to get a better sword to fight the Floor Bosses.

"Great doing business with you guys!" A male voice spoke to three guys leaving the shop and Sakore walks in as a certain guy he knows puts the stuff he had gotten away

"Good to see someone is out doing some of his own business work." Sakore says getting his attention

"Well I'll be a monkey's uncle. How are you Sakore?" Agil asks him and they bump their fists together

"Just a regular day of course. I stopped by wanting to give you some stuff that might want." Sakore says bringing out is menu and show some items he got "plus I also got these from rare drops, thought you might want to use them when you go out for some leveling."

"Well I'll be, these have some pretty decent stats. Sure I'll take them off ya, should this amount be enough?" Agil asks showing the amount of Col to trade for the items

"Yea, I'll take that amount. You know how to run a shop very well Agil." Sakore compliments him and he rubs his neck in embarrassment

"Hey now you're making me blush man." Agil says and they heard the door open "hello and welcome to my shop. Can I help you with anything?" Sakore turns to see the familiar face he has known for a long time **(she now has her original outfit that she wears in HF, so you guys know)**

"Oh Philia, I wasn't expecting to see you suddenly." Sakore says to her

"Well, I actually I came here to find you." She tells him and realizes what she means

"You know each other?" Agil asks him

"Yea, this is Philia, and Philia this is Agil. He runs the shop here and helps other players that are in need." Sakore tells her "so I guess you got more news huh?"

"Yup, and this might be the last of it. We gotta head to Floor 60." Philia explains to him

"Floor 60 huh? That is pretty high up, you think she can handle herself up in that high of a floor?" Agil asks Sakore

"We'll be fine, and besides I am part of the Assault team so she'll be safe with me." Sakore tells him

"Alright, so I guess you two are going on a quest together. Well you have me to support in coming back safely alright?" Agil tells him

"Not a problem. Alright Philia let's go find that place." Sakore tells her and Agil wishes them good luck on their quest and they use the teleport gate to travel to Floor 60.

Once they got to Floor 60, they get to the fields and see an entrance to a temple and it was colored in shiny orange like the amber stone. The two enter the temple to face against the Knight of the Sun. They get into another large room and to the center area.

"I congratulate you warriors for making this far, once you have completed this test you will be tested by the Astral King." A voice spoke and the room lit up and showed three knights with two being familiar "however you must fight all three of us together before you can acquire the pass of the Sun. You must defeat us, Stellar, Lunar, and me. I am Solar, Knight of the Sun!" The center Knight is Solar with bright orange armor wielding a mace and shield with three health bars appearing, Lunar wields the Axe in silver armor with only one health bar, and Stellar wields a two-handed sword and in shiny blue armor also with one health bar.

"Why are the previous two only have one?" Philia asks confused

"Not sure, maybe since this is the Sun's area then it has more health." Sakore says slightly unsure. However the two draw out their weapons and get ready to battle. "I can take on the other two if you can distract the Sun Knight."

"I'll do my best!" Philia tells him and moves in getting around the two knights since they were in front and the Sun one was behind. Sakore goes in at the two knights and strike with an AoE sword skill doing damage to both of them and dodging their attacks.

"I'll find out the real secret to the Astral Quest, as long as the two of us keep fighting!" Sakore says dodging Moon Knight and using a Sword Skill on the Star Knight, but getting hit in the process taking some damage. While Philia is dodging the Knight's swings as she strikes a couple of times to get the HP bar down a bit.

"_I have to keep up the pace and do as much as I can to keep this one away from Sakore until he finishes with the other two."_ Philia says in her thoughts and activate a Sword Skill to hit, but the Knight blocks her attack and Philia gets smacked by the mace.

"_Crap I need to hurry now!"_ Sakore says in his thoughts and then came up with a plan now bringing the Star Knight to Red and the Moon Knight to Yellow. He takes a quick step moving away and makes quick movement to the Sun Knight and tossing a crystal to Philia "Catch!" she sees him toss the crystal to her which is a healing crystal and he takes on the Sun Knight, she looks back seeing other two knights and knows what she has to do. She activates a Sword Skill that does multiple hits bringing the Star Knight down completely and burst.

"One down and just one more!" She says and readies herself. The Moon Knight readies to attack as she also goes for an attack to rebound the attack. "Switch!" she tells Sakore as he also rebounds the Sun Knight and the two attack the other Knight, Sakore's attack caused the Moon Knight to drop all the way and burst. Philia's attack brought the Sun Knight to the second HP bar. Sakore and Philia work as a perfect team to rebound and switch against the Sun Knight and Sakore's final attack did a big hit and make the knight lost all the HP and burst. "Yes! We beat them!"

"Well done warriors, you have completed the three trials." the voice spoke and they obtain the Sun Medallion and the Solar Gloves equipment. "Wear the garments that you obtained so the Astral King may accept your challenge. Place the Medallions in the proper slots to open the path."

"So we have to wear the Astral Equipment in the last fight before we can finish it." Sakore says and the two equip the three pieces of equipment and head to the door ahead and place the Medallions in the slots and the door lowers showing a large room and at the other end is a larger Knight in golden armor wielding a sword and shield.

"Welcome champions, I congratulate you both for defeating my three Knights. Now comes the final Trial of your journey, You must battle me to earn your special reward." The King says and he stands from his throne with the name -The Astral King- and four health bars indicating him being the boss battle.

"Alright Philia, you ready to fight this guy and finish this whole thing?" Sakore asks her and she smiles taking her stance

"You know it! I'm sure the treasure is waiting for me to obtain soon!" She says and the two charge forth towards the King and they dodge but the King was quick and he struck Sakore. "Hey get away from him!" Philia struck from behind and Sakore got to his feet and clash with the King and rebounded the sword getting a chance to strike lowering the HP of the first bar. The King then used an AoE skill striking them, Sakore backed away and quickly getting a potion out from his inventory as the King was slowly walking towards him. However Philia struck getting the first bar almost all the way gone and getting the King's attention and going for a Sword Skill and she goes for one also, but she gets rebounded and struck bringing her HP to yellow. As the King was walking towards her, Sakore activated a powerful Sword Skill that brought the King's HP to the second bar and halfway also.

"Stay away from her, I won't let you beat us!" Sakore says and goes for another strike although the King blocks with the sword. Philia takes the chance to attack and strike from behind causing the king to fumble and giving Sakore to hit and brings the HP past half on the second bar. The two go for a double Sword Skill attack and the HP is almost brought to the start of the third bar.

The King attacks Sakore with a horizontal slash, though taking damage wasn't a problem. The two back away as the King suddenly glowed a gold aura meaning it has gotten stronger and using a new skill now at Yellow. The King now moves faster than before and Sakore clashes blades as Philia tries to stab, but gets blocked by the shield. Then Sakore backs away as the King runs up to him and Sakore times it and parries the King giving Philia time to strike bringing the HP now a third down on the Third bar. The two ready themselves as Sakore goes in rebounding the King and Philia strikes and Sakore goes in doing another hit bringing the bar down below half, however the King attacks both with a Horizontal slash dropping their HP quite a bit.

"This guy is no joke." Philia says while drinking a potion and Sakore still fighting just now bringing the HP just barely getting to the last bar. "How about this." her dagger glows purple and she strikes along with kicks which actually caused a paralyzes on the boss, giving Sakore a chance to try and finish the boss with his sword glowing red and does a powerful 3 blunt attack bringing the HP down now at red. With that the two back away and the King has three symbols appear, one being the sun with a spiral and curved spikes, the second being the moon in crescent shape and then making a full circle for the last part, then last is the star drawing by lines only with the top point barely connecting. The symbols disappeared and caused the aura to grow bigger.

"Looks like he got a huge power boost!" Sakore says and the two charge in clashing blades with the King which he is now more skilled than before, and it is making it really difficult for them to gain an opening on their opponent and win the fight. Sakore and Philia were struck getting them to Red but Sakore pushed himself to finally hit bringing the HP all the way down and cause the King to burst finally ending the fight and -Congratulations- pops up above them. "We did it…" Sakore got an info screen indicating him getting the last attack bonus and it was the -Astral Shield- "Not really a shield user, but I'll keep it if needed."

"Congratulations young warriors, for completing the Trial of the Astral Knights you may pick between the rewards." the King spoke about and info screen shows up

"For how you will pick your rewards, the equipment one wears will change to a new set called -The Astral Set-, the other will be receiving a large amount of money. Oh wow… so Philia, what do you want?" Sakore asks her "I know you were anticipate about the treasure, but…"

"I'll take the money." she says

"Huh?! Wouldn't you want the equipment to be able to have good stats?" Sakore asks surprised

"Yea, but I think you need it more. You are part of the Assault Team, and you need it to fight the Floor Bosses. I'll be fine on my own. Also I think I already found my treasure." She tells him and he looks at curious about her answer "The special treasure I found, was being able to meet you on that day. If you hadn't come by to help I probably would have been dead before learning of this quest. That is a special treasure to me sincerely, thank you Sakore." He blushes from how she thought of him and she hugs him. Sakore never thought she would say that, but hearing that also made him happy in a way to keep fighting. Sakore turned to the info screen and saying he will take the equipment. **(his gear will look similar to Kirito's except colors.)** Sakore's cloak becomes shiny blue with white stars around the outside and orange trims with the Sun Symbol on the back, his pants and boots become silver with black trims and the Moon Symbol on one of the legs, and his gloves become amber orange as the plate on the back of the gloves have the Star Symbol. "Whoa that gear looks great on you, you might as well be called the "Astral Swordsman", that sounds like a title for you." Philia acquires 28k Col as her reward and both of them get the same amount of Exp for the quest now finished.

"Maybe so, however I think I might need to upgrade on a new weapon later on since the Floors will be really difficult to clear." Sakore says looking his sheathed weapon on his back

"Maybe me and Argo will find something that drops a good sword. I would also wish you the best of luck." Philia says with a bright smile and Sakore couldn't help but smile also.

**That is the end of the Astral Quest, sure it was short for it to end but I honestly didn't have much to think about for it. Also I made it kinda cheesy with Philia and the special treasure she had already found. Hope you guys liked that part, now we are going to more of the main story with Sakore with Kirito and Asuna again, plus a new sword in the process. Now Sakore has his own set of equipment and now ready to take on anything. So hope you enjoyed this and get ready for more exciting adventures!**

**Next Time; The Blue-Eyed Demon**


	7. Ep 7 The Blue-Eyed Demon

_Arc 1; Ep 7; The Blue-Eyed Demon_

_-October 17, 2024 Floor 72 Crystal Keeper's Dungeon-_

Sakore is currently inside a dungeon facing against a boss that holds many crystals, the info was given to him by Argo explaining that these crystals could also be made into powerful weapons. So he went on his own to take on the boss and it was very heavy battle and Sakore already has the boss down to it's last HP bar, then his sword glowed a dark purple having his slash twice in a diagonal strike making an X, then does a horizontal and vertical slashes making an 8 point star and for the last strike he thrusts his sword causing the HP to drop on the boss all the way and make it burst into pieces. Once that was done, he looks at the spot where he sees seven different color crystals. He looks between them and takes the purple and black colored crystal that had a glow to it, and an info screen pops -Dark Amethyst Crystal ingot Acquired-

"Alright now that is over, time to head back to town." Sakore says and takes out a teleport crystal and returns to town noticing it is afternoon. "I should find a blacksmith that could make me a weapon, but where could I find possibly a master blacksmith?" He was unsure how to find someone skilled enough then decided to message Asuna about her suggestion of a good blacksmith. He waits for a moment then gets a reply

"I have a friend who has a shop down on the 48th Floor, she can make you a new weapon to use. Her place is in town, look for the house with the waterwheel. Let me know if you need anything else!" Asuna replied in her message. He replied back with a thanks and said he will ask if needed. He goes to the teleport gate and travels to Floor 48 in the town of Lindas.

_-Floor 48 Lindas, Lisbeth's Blacksmith shop-_

Sakore appears on the 48th Floor and looks around town until he finds the place Asuna told him about and he goes to the house and opens the door which a bell rings that would signal the shop owner that a customer has arrived, he looks to see different weapons on display in the shop

"Wow, these weapons all look amazing. It must have taken a long time to be able to make these out of so many materials." Sakore says amazed with there being so many weapons. While he was mesmerized by the creations a voice spoke at the desk

"Welcome to Lisbeth's Blacksmith shop!" a female voice spoke getting his attention, she has pink hair, pink colored eyes, has a red dress similar like a maid uniform, and brown boots. Sakore thought the girl must be Lisbeth, the owner of the shop.

"Uh hi, so I am wondering if you could do anything like custom orders." He tells her and she observes him

"This guy better not be worse than Kirito when he first came by." Lis says in her thoughts "I can do that, but although the metal prices are kinda high these days."

"I'm not worried about that, I just feel like the current sword I have might not be good to use anymore. So I was thinking if you can make a very good quality sword." Sakore opens his menu and takes out the crystal "Something made from this?" she was amazed at the item he has

"Where did you get something like that?!" She asks surprised wide eyed

"I got this from a dungeon on Floor 72." He tells her and she was shocked to hear him say that

"Is he also part of the Assault Team? That would be understandable if he is able to go to higher floors." She says in her thoughts "Well alright I can do that, please follow me to the smithing room." he gives her the crystal and then they head down and Lis equips her white gloves for smithing and starts her work. "This will take some time to prepare so please have some patience."

"Sure, I'll let you do your work." He says and sits down as he watches her work on the crystal. Once doing so the Crystal has shaped to an ingot ready to be hammered to form into a weapon.

"So what kind of weapon do you want?" she asks him

"A one-handed sword." Sakore tells her and she nods confirming, and starts hammering the melted ingot. After a couple of hits it glows and starts forming into a sword (Now I want it to be shaped like the Master Sword, however the colors are not gonna be the same.) The sword has a black hilt with a gold gem in the center, and the blade is the color and glow similar to the crystal. Then an info screen pops up for her to see

"The sword is called, "The Dark Moon's Blade." Amazing, it isn't even in the info broker's directory also." She explains and he stands up "Give it a try." Sakore picks up the sword and tests swings it. "Well?"

"Amazing, this sword is fantastic!" Sakore says with a smile "It feels like forged it with everything you got." he sheathed his now new sword into a new holster. "And for the payment…"

"I'll make the cost be eight thousand, it would've been super expensive. Although it looked as though you worked super hard to get that crystal." Lis tells him

"Really? That's kinda surprising actually." Sakore says

"Yea, well I thought that you would be like this one guy that destroyed one of my special made swords." She tells him

"Really, wow what a jerk. I'm not that kind of person to anyone especially girls." He tells her "If I wasn't so damn shy to people I would be making friends…"

"Well that's good to hear, and if you ever need your equipment repaired then just come over to Lisbeth's Blacksmith Shop." She tells him

"Will do." He pays her the amount needed "See you sometime later." He leaves the shop and Lis was happy to not have casualties similar when she met Kirito.

-Floor 50-

Sakore returns to the floor to the hotel he rented a room at and went upstairs and knocked on the door.

"Come in." a female voice said and he walks into the room and look to his partner whenever he is off from the Assault Team. "Well, did you get a new sword?" she asks him

"Yup I did, got a sword forged by a Blacksmith, thanks to Argo's info about the crystals. I believe this will help me during boss raids. It's really exciting actually huh Philia?" he asks

"Yup, I also don't want you to do anything stupid alright." Philia tells him

"Hey I won't! Although I am gonna go to Floor 74 and test it out, I'll also go see what the boss is so we can advance again." Sakore tells her. After they finished the Astral Quest, Sakore suggested to her that whenever he is off from doing stuff with the Assault Team they could party together and Philia was happy about that.

"You better not take it head on! I won't forgive you if you try." Philia tells him

"Hey I won't! I'm not that crazy to take a boss by myself!" He defends himself and gets himself in sleeping wear. "Anyway it is getting late, might as well rest for the night. Can't go to a fight without having sleep." Philia agrees and gets to her sleeping clothes and they lay down in the bed "good night Philia."

"Night Sakore." she tells him and they fall asleep

-October 18, 2024, Floor 74 Dungeon-

Time has passed and Sakore took his time get some food eaten and made his way into the 74th Floor dungeon, in his path he battled some Lizardmen and Undead Skeletons, and using his new sword was paying off taking out the enemies in the dungeon. He continues through the dungeon until seeming to have reached a safe zone area, and once he passed through the barrier he could see some familiar faces in the distance.

"Is that… Kirito, Asuna, Klein!" He shouts out their names and goes over to them.

"Hey Sakore! Good to see you buddy!" Klein says to him as he has gotten closer to them. "Dude, listen to this! Kirito is in a party!"

"Wait, the Black Swordsman and Lightning Flash are in a party together? Now this is golden!" Sakore says surprised

"Whoa hey it isn't like that Sakore!" Kirito tells him slightly blushing and Asuna also blushed a bit.

"I'm kinda surprised that a Solo Player like you suddenly started forming a party. I was going Solo for a long while, but I am partying with someone, they just aren't ready to face Floor Bosses." Sakore says "So why the sudden change of heart huh?" Sakore was curious as to why he and Asuna were getting along after a couple of times arguing. However they hear the sounds of movement and look to see a large group entering the safe zone that look to be soldiers. "Wait, aren't those guys from the Aincraid Liberation guild?"

"Yea, the guild that runs Floor 1. What are they doing up here?" Klein asks confused.

"They were almost slaughtered on Floor 25, instead of clearing dungeons they've been trying to build up their numbers." Asuna explains "I haven't seen them on the front lines in a while." the guy in front who seems to be the one in charge of the group stops and turns to his men

"At ease!" the guy tells them and they fall to rest themselves almost seemingly tired. Then he walks up to the small team. "I'm Lt. Corvatz of the Aincraid Liberation Army."

"I'm Kirito, Solo." he tells him

"Course you are. Have you cleared the area up ahead?" Corvatz asks

"Yea, we also got a map and directions to the boss room." Kirito explains

"Good, then hand over that map and we'll be on our way." he tells him

"Whoa hang on, you want us to just give it to you?! Dude do you even know how much of a pain mapping is?!" Sakore yells at him

"We share our information and resources with civilian players all the time! We don't charge a thing for it!" Corvatz tells him "We maintain order, and the chaos of battle. So that all players can leave this world as quickly as possible! Therefore, it is your duty to cooperate with us, so hand over that map!"

"Listen you!" Asuna says about to scold him

"You bastard!" Sakore says going to draw out his sword

"Easy, when would we go back to town I was gonna go public with the map anyway." Kirito says stopping Sakore from doing so "It's cool." He shares the map info to Corvatz

"Thanks for cooperating." Corvatz says and starts walking back to his men

"By the way, if you're planning to hit the boss I wouldn't recommend it." Kirito warns him

"That is my decision to make." Corvatz replied which made Kirito worry

"Hey I just took a look inside that room pal, and you can't beat that boss if you're troops are half dead!" Kirito tells him "look at them! They're exhausted!"

"Nonsense! My men are tougher than that! They won't quit until I say so!" Corvatz says being stubborn to admit it. "On your feet, come on move!" the worn out soldiers stand up and the large group takes the path to the boss.

"Oh man, are those guys gonna be ok?" Klein asks

"We should probably follow them, just to make sure they aren't dumb enough to actually fight the boss." Sakore says with Kirito agreeing and they move forward "So Kirito you said you got a look at the boss, what do you think about it?"

"From what I saw it had a large sword, it could have powerful sword skills to knock us down." Kirito explains and Sakore got a worried look on his face. Getting halfway to the boss room the small group takes out the enemies that got in their path being the last one when suddenly they hear screams up ahead in the direction to the boss room. "Asuna!" The two start running ahead with Sakore behind leaving Klein and his team there with enemies respawning. The trio make quick tracks to the boss room with more screaming.

"Idiots!" Asuna says as they continue running and they stop at the entrance of the boss room.

"Hey! You guys alright?!" Kirito asks and they see the soldiers already fighting the boss, Sakore looked up to see the name -The Gleam Eyes- and notice that the soldiers have taken it down to it's second HP bar already. They get hit by the boss causing a bunch to get knocked away.

"What are you guys doing?! Use your teleport crystals!" Sakore shouts at them

"We can't! Th-the crystals aren't working!" one soldier tells him and the boss strikes again

"I've never heard of a trap like this being in a boss room before." Asuna says scared, as Kirito had the expression of knowing a trap like this.

"The Aincraid Liberation Army doesn't know the word retreat! Come on! Keep fighting!" Corvatz yells out

"That guy's nuts!" Sakore says

"Hey, the hells going on?!" Klein says just making it in time to see what is happening

"They can't use their teleportation crystals! We could distract the boss, but going in there is too risky." Kirito explains

"But, isn't there something we can do?!" Klein asks while Kirito gritted his teeth

"Ready? Charge!" Corvatz orders his troops and they go in to attack

"Don't do it!" Kirito warns them as the boss lets out a breath attack hitting a large number of them and struck knocking them around and sending Corvatz right to the four at the doorway. "Hey. Hang on Corvatz!" his helmet shattered showing his reaction and said his last words.

"I can't believe it…" he says and bursts making it his death with them shocked, the boss readies itself to finish off a soldier however Asuna drew out her rapier and charged in

"Asuna!" Kirito charges in after her

"Wait! Kirito!" Sakore follows behind him

"Oh what the hell!" Klein says as Asuna uses a Sword Skill to get the boss' attention and causing it to miss hitting the soldier. It then turned and punched Asuna a far distance and having her vulnerable to get hit although Kirito got there in time to block and move the strike off the path from striking Asuna

"Get out!" Kirito tells her as Klein and his team hurried to get the soldiers out of the way while the boss tried to use a breath attack Sakore starts up a unique Sword Skill he obtained before

"Shadow's Abyss!" He shouts having his sword glow dark purple, doing a double slash making an X and doing another double making an eight star point and thrusts in the center of it to finish the combo. Both he and the boss start clashing their weapons as well as doing some hits from one to the other at short times, and Kirito also jumping in the mix. The boss then smacked Sakore into a wall as Kirito stops the boss from going to finish him off, Sakore sees his HP go down to the Yellow _"Crap, I need to think of something for us to win. But at this rate... lots of people will die, not even we could beat it… come on think!"_ Sakore tries thinking of a way to fight the boss and he sees Kirito look at everyone in the room, seeing the three still good. However the soldiers were down in Red indicating they could get killed in one more attack. Kirito blocks another attack.

"Hey Klein, Asuna, Sakore! Listen, I need 10 seconds keep him off me!" Kirito tells them and dodges another attack

"Yea! You got it!" Klein says going in and Asuna following also, Sakore gets up and joins the fray and they distract the boss as long as they can while Klein got knocks back and Sakore blocks getting moved away with his HP barely reaching Red.

"Ok, I'm ready!" Kirito tells them and Asuna uses a skill to knock the weapon away and giving Kirito an opening. "Switch out!" he goes in blocking the attack and from Sakore's view he sees an emerald glow from Kirito's back making him reach out and knock the boss away. Sakore thought he switched different swords, but upon closer inspection he sees Kirito actually wielding two swords at once."Starburst Stream!" he starts comboing the boss

"What the hell kind of a skill is that?!" Sakore asks in complete shock seeing Kirito fight completely different. He was moving incredibly fast and this had him deal the last blow at the boss causing it to lose all it's HP and burst in pieces. "Amazing, I never knew he had something like that…" Sakore was in complete shock and he looked close at Kirito's HP and saw just a slight amount left barely having him surviving the fight. The Congratulations sign showed up signalling the boss being defeated. "Damn he seriously takes a lot of risks in situations." suddenly Kirito fell on his back losing consciousness

"Kirito!" Asuna shouted to him and everyone ran over to him and Asuna uses a healing crystal to restore his HP "Wake up Kirito!" he starts opening his eyes regaining conscious and sits up, he looks to see everyone around worried about him.

"That was too close, how long was I out?" Kirito asks while Asuna was letting tears out happy that he is still ok.

"Just a few seconds." She tells him wiping her tears away "You reckless… idiot." she hugs him and was surprised and smiled slightly then turned to Sakore

"... Corvatz and two of his members didn't make it through…" He explains to him

"We haven't lost a player in a boss fight, since Floor 67…" Kirito says sadly

"That wasn't a boss fight, it was suicide. Corvatz was a damn fool!" Klein says gritting his teeth. "There's no point to any of this if you die!"

"Also what the heck was that you just did during that battle?!" Sakore asks Kirito and he wasn't sure of wanting to answer

"I don't think you want to know…" Kirito replies to him

"Aw come on dude! That was something I never even seen before! Just tell us what it was, we can understand!" Sakore tells him and Kirito gave up since they know a secret he has been holding

"It's an extra skill I picked up… Dual Wielding." He tells them, Sakore, Klein and his team were amazed hearing about that. Sakore then remembered the Unique Skill he acquired after completed the Astral Quest.

_-Flashback-_

"_What else did you get?" Philia asks him and he was unsure how to answer, he got an info screen telling him of a Unique Sword Skill._

_-You Acquired a new one-handed Sword Skill "Shadow's Abyss"-_

"_I… seemed to have gotten a Sword Skill…" Sakore replies to her_

"_I never heard a skill like that… do you think it was unique to you?" Philia asks as he was unsure about it._

"_It might be, it says is given to the "Hero of the Stars". Hero of the Stars? What does that even mean?" Sakore asks confused why he is given this Unique skill. _

_-End of Flashback-_

"Whoa, that's awesome! Why didn't you even tell us we're your friends!" Sakore tells him

"If people found out I had a skill like that…" Kirito starts explaining

"Then they would get upset that you got something they don't… I can understand that as a reason for it. Hey some jerks are like that, but not me… though I am slightly jealous about that, but I won't give you an earful." Sakore tells him and Kirito was confused. "_I know how he feels, I have something I never expected and I was unsure to show it until now."_ Sakore believed that the relationship with Kirito and Asuna is going to change dramatically "Instead, keep on walking the path you take my friend." after saying that Sakore starts making his way to the stairs up to Floor 75 to activate the teleport gate and returning to Floor 50 to report to Philia on progress.

_-October 19, 2024 Floor 50-_

The next day the news about Kirito's Dual Wielding Skill spreads, it even hit the newspapers as well.

"Well, with this out it shows now that Kirito's special skill has been spilt out to the public. People must be pretty aggravated knowing this." Sakore says who is currently laying on one of the beds in their rented room reading the newspaper.

"He must be pretty amazing to have something like that." Philia says taking a bite of a sandwich they bought for the day. "It sounds Unique like your new Sword Skill, when we cleared the Astral Knight Quest."

"Yea, he acquired it suddenly out of nowhere but I have gotten mine from the quest… but it was my first time seeing him unleash a powerful unique skill." Sakore tells her still looking through the news then he gets an incoming message from Asuna she explains to him that Kirito and the Commander of the KoB guild are actually going to duel on Floor 75 tomorrow. "Well that's unexpecting news."

"What's up?" Philia asks him and he sits up

"I just got a message from a friend of mine who is part of the KoB guild. She tells me that Kirito and the Commander of the guild are gonna duel with conditions on the line." Sakore tells her

"Why all of a sudden? What's the conditions that were made?" Philia asks him curiously

"She says that if Kirito wins he can take Asuna along with him, however if he loses then he is forced to join the guild." Sakore tells her

"Odd request, I mean anyone can choose whether to join or decline of being in a guild it's their decision really." Philia says and Sakore agreed with her statement, but the strange thing is why does he want to duel Kirito suddenly? That question rung in Sakore's mind wondering what is the reason for doing so.

**Woo! Now that was a chapter, double chapters in one day! I hope you enjoyed reading the exciting moment of Kirito using Dual Blades for the first time, and Sakore's moment will arrive very much later to use that skill. Now Kirito and Healthcliff are going to have a duel, plus I'm going to do the whole next chapter with the duel and the episodes of Yui, hope you guys will enjoy the very long chapter coming up! Also I am still going for suggestions if you guys want Sakore to start having a rival when he begins ALO let me know and I want to know your author names so I can give credit to you guys.**

**Next Time; Yui's Heart**


	8. Ep 8 Yui's Heart

_Arc 1; Ep 8; Yui's Heart_

-October 20, 2024 Floor 75 Collinia-

The next day was the day where Heathcliff the Commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath, and Kirito the Twinblade Swordsman would duel in a colosseum up on the newly opened floor. Sakore brought Philia for her to see as they were given a good view of how the fight was going to go. This duel has two of the greatest players in all of SAO.

"Hey Sakore, who do you think is gonna win?" Philia asks him

"To be completely honest I am unsure, Kirito does have his Dual Blades unique skill. Although Heathcliff is no joke, he has a special skill called The Divine Blade, that skill maximizes his offence and defense stats, it's almost likely that it can go either way." Sakore explains "I do know that Kirito won't be going down that easily…" Even so Sakore also had thoughts to the news thinking that the Commander also believes he will be the victor of the duel. Sakore has yet to believe he will prevail in winning.

The two fighters were brought onto the battlefield and chatting a bit until Heathcliff sends the duel request to Kirito and he accepts it to be a regular duel type battle and the counter appear as well as the duel of who is fighting.

-Heathcliff VS Kirito-

Everyone watched as the competitors drew out their weapons ready to face each other as the timer continues counting down. As soon the timer hit zero Kirito was the first to move and try to strike. Heathcliff used his shield to block the attack. Kirito continues trying to attack and trying to get a hit on him. Heathcliff goes for a strike though Kirito blocks and jumps back gaining distance and Heathcliff charges towards him to strike and what he used to hit was his shield and knock Kirito away. The two continue clashing blades against one another, as Sakore is watching very carefully at how the two are almost evenly matched. There were some hits given to each of them and now Kirito uses the time to attack and actually knock Heathcliff's shield away for an opening and Kirito charges up a downward slash looking to be the finishing move to win the duel. However things seemed to be frozen in time when Sakore sees Heathcliff strangely move his shield back in place to block the attack, and now suddenly everything starts to move normally and Kirito's attack gets blocked and got struck causing his HP to hit Yellow and signalling Heathcliff winning the duel.

"Aw drat, that was so close. I thought for sure he was going to win from that point…" Philia said then noticed Sakore's expression of disbelief. "Sakore…?"

"_No way he could have blocked that attack so quickly, it was right there unable to be blocked… how could Heathcliff be able to react that fast and block it? That just seemed impossible…"_ Sakore said in his thoughts in disbelief of Heathcliff winning the duel.

"Sakore?" Philia got his attention from being too focused from the duel. "The duel's over, let's return back to our place for the day."

"... Yea ok…" he replied and the two start heading back to the teleport gate. However he wasn't going to let this slide, he needed to know how Heathcliff was able to block an attack so close yet unable to defend against.

-October 30, 2024 Floor 22-

Days pass as Kirito has become part of the KoB guild, and some other special things happened where Sakore found out about Kirito and Asuna getting closer than before. Especially getting married, so Sakore makes the decision to go visit them so he has told Philia that he would like to congratulate them. As he appeared in town he started making his way to where the new couple was, but he accidentally bumps into a girl, she is close to his height, with pale skin, she has black raven hair that is tied up in a small ponytail, light blue eyes, her equipment is a black and red top that has detached sleeves, a violet color breastplate, Black and red skirt, black stockings, her weapon is a short one handed sword equipped to her waist.

"Oh sorry there!" Sakore tells her

"Oh no, I should apologize because I was lost in thought." She tells him and shyly looks away "I should get going…" she was about to head to the teleport gate but Sakore grabbed her by the shoulder to stop her

"Wait! Um… is alright if I know your name?" He asks her and she was quiet then spoke

"You can call me… Lucy." She tells him

"Good to meet you, I'm Sakore. Wish we could chat more, but I was planning to meet some friends of mine. Though we can be friends if you want." He tells her and opens the menu and send a friend request to her, she was hesitant a bit, but accepted it "If you are willing I could bring you to my place later on to meet another friend of mine."

"Maybe… I'll think about it." She says and she leaves making Sakore wonder about her a bit. Though his objective is to meet with Kirito and Asuna at their new house out by the lake. Once he got to the log cabin out by the lake he knocks on the door as well as unequipping his gear having just a shirt with the three symbols on the back, the pants, and boots. The door opens showing Asuna in a beige sweater and a brown knee length skirt and boots.

"Sakore? What are you doing here?" she asks him

"What else than to congratulate the new couple!" He tells her with a slight chuckle and she blushes in embarrassment "So may I come in?"

"Of course, please come right in. I just made some lunch would you want some?" She asks and he nods, she lets him in as she closes the door and goes to the kitchen. Sakore goes to the couch where Kirito is sitting at and suddenly noticed a young girl in a white dress with light black hair reaching her back sleeping on a chair.

"Who is that girl?" he turns to Kirito who is still wearing his all black clothing, and of course he and Asuna have the wedding rings on them.

"We don't know, we found her in the forest yesterday wandering around. The strange thing is that she isn't a player or NPC." Kirito tells him and Sakore sees he is right, the girl doesn't have a cursor above her. "Today we learned that she doesn't remember anything except her name, Yui."

"Yui… but amnesia? I never heard of something like that in SAO." Sakore says and sits on the couch wondering about the little girl that is here.

"Yea, I haven't got a clue if that is possible or not. However the both of us are gonna take Yui to Floor 1 the next day to see if anyone knows about her." Kirito tells him

"Oh, then would it be alright if I helped?" Sakore asks as Asuna brought a sandwich in for him.

"You sure? We wouldn't want to bother you if you were busy with anything." Asuna says

"It's fine, besides I'm basically free of daily stuff. I also am curious about who she is… that's a big mystery in any case." Sakore says taking a bite of the sandwich Asuna made

"Ok then, meet us in the Town of Beginning tomorrow." Asuna tells him and he agrees to meet them there. After some time passed he tells his good-byes to them and to see them tomorrow. He returned to the town and saw some guys gathering around someone.

"Hey girl why not come with us?" one of the guys said, as he is trying to charm a girl.

"Yea, we like to hang around with girls like you!" another guy says and from some openings Sakore saw the girl he met before a while ago who is getting crowded by 10 male players.

"Please just back off." She tells them scared and wanting to get away, but she is now completely surrounded by them.

"Aw come on you don't need to be shy, just come with us. We like to play real nice!" one guy said who sounds to be the big shot of the group, while Sakore couldn't ignore this.

"Hey! Why don't you pick someone your own size!" Sakore yells out at them and getting their attention.

"What'd you say punk?!" one guy asks sounding annoyed

"Dude thinks he is so cool trying to be a hero!" another guy says with a smug look on his face.

"Buzz off fly, you shouldn't mess with us. Especially me, I'm the biggest baddest guy around here so stay out!" the leader guy says drawing out his large two-handed sword pointing it right at Sakore

"You think you can just force girls to do your bidding, you are a sick twisted person is what I think." Sakore says getting his sword equipped

"You think you're being cool and shit huh?! Well I'll show you who's better!" The leader charges at Sakore as he draws out his sword and rebounds it and does a horizontal slash knocking him back. He was also getting pretty pissed off after that hit. "Damn you!" He charges at him again and Sakore does his unique Sword Skill Shadow's Abyss doing his four slashes and thrusts doing the final combo hit causing the big guy to be knocked over into a fountain with a screen popping up saying -Immortal Object-.

"You should think twice before taking on someone like me, but of course you wouldn't have to worry about your HP since it is a safe zone, but if you ever cross with me ever again. I will make sure you have nightmares for the rest of your life!" Sakore tells him with a fearful glare and the other guys also got scared, when suddenly one of them recognised the symbol on his pants.

"Wait a minute, that Moon symbol… isn't that… holy crap this guy is the Astral Swordsman! He's part of the Assault Team!" one guy tells them and the rest looked at Sakore closely and confirming that he is that exact person.

"He is?! Oh shit screw that, I ain't messing with him! Let's get out of here!" another one said scared and they retreat as well as the leader of the group. Sakore put his sword back into the holster and turned to Lucy who was crouching as well as frightened but also glad to have been saved.

"Sorry you had to be targeted by those pervs. If I had gotten here late, who knows what they would have done." Sakore tells her

"Actually… I was trying to hide from them months ago… some girls were taken by them and they were forced to do…" Lucy starts explaining and she was about to break into tears, until Sakore lifted her up and hugged her.

"You shouldn't be around here, it's dangerous… would you like to come back to my place? I have a rented room on the 50th floor." Sakore tells her and she takes a moment to think about it and nods. "ok, let's go then." They go to the teleport gate and go to Floor 50 and go to the hotel that he and Philia stay at. Once they get to his room Philia wasn't expecting another person arriving.

"Who is she? You never said you would be bringing anyone here." Philia says

"Sorry Philia, it's just some jerks were gonna take her somewhere possibly going to do certain stuff with her and I had just rescued her from Floor 22." Sakore explains to her

"Oh I'm sorry to hear that." Philia tells her

"It's fine. However I want to rescue the other captive girls, although I'm not really skilled enough to face them. Their base is on Floor 37, one of the captive girls was able to escape and I ran into her telling me about the problems happening. I wanted to help, but my level is too low to take them head on." Lucy explains and they wonder what to do.

"We could have her power level from Floors that can give her lots of Exp." Philia suggests

"True, but however I kinda promised to do a favor for Kirito and Asuna tomorrow. I am not sure how long it will take but I will message you what happens later on, so Philia I am counting on you to be able to get Lucy up to the higher levels. Also maybe getting some better gear while I'm gone, and be sure to steer clear from the guys that might look for her." Sakore explains to her

"I will do that, you just finish your favor." Philia tells him and they take a rest for the night and Lucy is added to the party also.

-October 31, 2024 Floor 1 Town of Beginnings-

The next day Sakore is waiting at the teleport gate of the Town of Beginnings for Kirito and Asuna to arrive. While the two girls went out to the fields and face enemies that can bring Lucy's levels up, since Sakore's Level is 97, and Philia is at Level 86, they had to raise her Level from 30 to near theirs if possible.

As he is waiting, the people he waited for have arrived along with the girl in a cute new outfit now.

"Hey there, were you waiting long?" Kirito asks him

"Nah, I just made sure some friends were gonna do so leveling on the fields on a different Floor while I am gone. I met someone who wanted to fight on the higher floors and not just stay around these Floor levels." Sakore tells him

"Understandable, but you sure they'll be alright?" Asuna asks him

"Yea, one of them is a good enough level to take on higher Floors, so they're making our other friend power level pretty much. Anyway this one must be Yui." Sakore says seeing her having a piggyback ride on Kirito and she looked shy. "Hey there, I'm Sakore. I'm a friend to these two." she tried pronouncing his name but it was difficult for her. "Thought it might be difficult for her, so is there something you wanna call me to make it easier for you?"

"... Uncle?" she says which gives Sakore a slight surprised expression

"It's fine, she actually suggested Asuna and I to be her mommy and daddy." Kirito tells him and he smiles which was the first time Sakore ever saw Kirito smile like that and Asuna giggles happily.

"That's cute, then shall we start going around?" Sakore asks them

"Sure, but first. Hey Yui does this place look familiar?" Kirito asks her and she looks around and then shook her head giving the others a sigh of disappointment. "Well better start looking around." They start looking around and head to the market areas.

"Hey guys, do you know how many players are here? Right now in the town?" Asuna asks the two

"Hmm, good question… last I checked there were six thousand players still alive in SAO and about 30% of those people including the army live in the Town of Beginnings. So maybe a little less than two thousand?" Kirito guesses unsure about the actual number

"Then doesn't it seem a little dead around here?" Asuna asks and they stop walking

"Yea, you're right…" Sakore says noticing it also.

"Leave those children alone!" A woman shouts out having the trio hear it.

"Look it's the daycare bitch!" a guy says sounding amused

"We've been waiting for you!" Another guy says and the trio make their way to the source

"Leave them alone and let them go!" The woman tells a small group of Liberation soldiers

"You make it sound like we're doing something illegal babycakes. We're just teaching them how things work around here, making sure they pay their way. It's all part of the army's job ma'am." The guy who seems to be in charge of them tells the woman

"That's right, everyones gotta pay taxes around here." one guy says and they start laughing.

"Kids are you alright?!" The woman asks the three kids scared behind the army soldiers

"Help Miss Sasha! Please! Save us!" the girls cries out terrified

"They just want your money, so give it to them and it'll be ok!" the woman called Sasha tells them

"We tried Teach, but they said it's not good enough!" one boy tells her which makes her worried

"You know, you deadbeats owe us a hell of a lot in back taxes." one guy tells her

"You need to drop all the equipment you have on you, including your armor." the main guy tells her "Come on honey, don't be shy."

"No way, let me through or else! Stand aside!" Sasha warns him as the trio start making their way into the situation with the main guy noticing them and the trio leap over them right to where the three kids are at having Kirito and Sakore stand guard while Asuna went over to the kids.

"You guys are gonna be ok now, pick up your stuff." Asuna tells them and the amazed kids did so.

"What the… whoa, whoa whoa whoa hey who the hell are you?!" one guy asks them

"This is army business, so get the hell out of our way!" another warns them

"Hold on I got this." The main guy tells them and walks towards them. "I guess you're all new in town yea? Cause we're with the Liberation Army and you do not mess with us!" he draws out his sword and Asuna equips her rapier and walks to the guy

"Kirito, take care of Yui." She tells him and he nods as she draws out her weapon looking serious now. The guy only smirked until she strikes him knocking him back and does it again. "Oh don't worry, it's a safe zone your HP won't deplete no matter what I do. There's just a feeling of getting knocked off your feet… even so, a fight with me is still gonna scare the hell out of you." he was seriously frightened and tries getting away only to get struck again

"Don't just stand there you assholes do something!" he tells his soldiers and they took one look at Asuna who looked serious to face each one of them and started running away like cowards. The kids were amazed from her skills and started praising her and Sasha went over and thanked her.

"You see that? Your mom's crazy strong isn't she?" Kirito tells Yui and she looked up at the sky and the two guys notice this.

"Their hearts… everyone's hearts are…" she started saying and reaching a hand to the sky above which the two guys were confused at what she means.

"What's wrong Yui?" Asuna asks which got her attention

"Yui? What's the matter? Yui!" Kirito asks her and she paused

"Hey, did you remember something Yui?" Sakore asks her

"I… I… was never here… in this place… I was always alone in the dark." she says which made the air grim strangely, then suddenly she screamed scared causing something weird to happen around them. Yui was gonna fall off of Kirito's back and Asuna was quick to catch her. "Mommy! I'm scared! Mommy…"

"My god… Yui…" Kirito says completely scared at what just happened, Yui took one look at Kirito and suddenly passed out.

"What was that…?" Asuna asks worried about Yui.

-November 1, 2024 Sasha's Daycare Place-

The next day they stayed at Sasha's daycare for Yui to rest, Sakore also messaged the two girls that he had to stay because of being worried of what happened yesterday. Philia did send a message asking about something strange happening from the environment around them while they were out on the fields. Currently Lucy has power leveled up to 53 now and have gotten new gear at her level, but still needed more progress to keep her promise. Sakore is near the entrance of the daycare in deep thought about yesterday.

"_I'm worried about Yui… none of us know what just happened that day."_ he said in his thoughts. "_Kirito and Asuna finds her in a forest on Floor 22, we try to see if anyone knows her or have seen her before. Yet it seems we can't get a complete answer of who Yui is."_ Sakore continues trying to think about what caused the strange event to happen. Then a knock was heard from the door and they opened to see a woman whose equipment is similar to the Liberation Army.

"Sorry to bother you, I'm Yulier." She tells them

"You're with the army right? I hope your not here to cause trouble." Asuna says to her

"God no, in fact I'm here to thank you." she tells them and surprised them. "You did right putting those men in their places. Actually I came to ask the three of you for your help." They decided to go into a room to talk privately and discuss what she wants to ask. "When the guild was form, we… well… actually it was our leader Thinker. He never wanted it to turn into the kind of dictatorial organization it's become. At first, the mission of the guild was to share information and food, equally among as many players as possible."

"But at that point the guild grew to large, am I right?" Sakore asks

"Right, and after much fighting one man became very powerful. His name is Kiboau." Yulier says and the trio know that name, but haven't heard about him after so long. "Kiboau and his group became stronger and stronger, monopolizing all the best monster spawn points. They're out of control now, extorting other players under the pretext of collecting taxes. It was obvious Kiboau didn't care about clearing the game, and it made a lot of people mad. He had to do something about it, so he sent the highest level players to the front lines." The trio then remembered some of the members they encountered up on Floor 74's dungeon area.

"Corvatz." Asuna understood how and why they were brought to the frontlines.

"Kiboau was denounced after spearheading that massacre. That's when we decided to seriously kick him out of the guild for good." Yulier tells them continuing her story. "Now that he's scared and getting desperate, he decided to eliminate Thinker." To think that Kiboau would go as far to have someone out of the way just to stay in a guild. "He set a trap and stranded Thinker deep inside a dungeon."

"Can't he teleport out?" Kirito asks worried and Yulier shook her head

"Does he have any weapons?" Asuna asks

"He didn't take anything with him, Kiboau told him he wanted to talk unarmed. Thinker believed him… that was three days ago." Yulier tells them really worried

"He's been gone that long?! Can't he find his way out?!" Asuna asks

"The dungeon is the highest level we've seen so far. He can't get out of there on his own. As his second-in-command this is my responsibility." Yulier says "But the problem is my level isn't high enough to reach him, and Kiboau is using his influence to keep the rest of the army from helping me. When I heard three of the most powerful players anyone had seen were in town I thought "This is my chance!" I tracked you down cause I need your help!" she stood up "Kirito, Asuna, Sakore. I beg of you for Thinker's sake, please help me rescue him from that dungeon!" she tells them sounding very serious about this. The trio looked to each other unsure about this being true or not.

"If you think we can help get Thinker out of there, we'd be glad to help you." Asuna tells her "However… well, the thing is we'd like to make sure you're telling the truth."

"I'm sorry, I know we just met and I'm asking a lot from you!" She says actually crying now "But when I think about him trapped alone in there, I feel like… I'm going insane!" they can tell she is worried, but not sure if it really is true until Yui spoke up

"It's ok mommy." She says and they look at her. "everything she's been telling you, is the truth." they went wide eyed not expecting her to say that

"Yui… you mean you can tell?" Asuna asks her surprised and Yui nods

"I'm not sure how she is but… she is." Yui says with a smile and they were silent for a bit until Kirito laughs amused

"If anything I rather trust her and regret it than not trust her and regret it." Kirito says and the other two stared at him. "Let's go, it'll all work out. Right?" he asks with a grin and Sakore snickered

"Alright whatever you say…" Sakore tells him "Alright then, we'll help you. I hope we are strong enough to do it." Yulier couldn't believe she actually heard the words that she didn't expect to hear but was really grateful to have them help in her cause.

"Thank you so much." She tells them

"I know what it feels like to save someone, especially for someone you care for." Asuna tells her

"Stay here and wait for us ok?" Kirito tells Yui rubbing her head

"No! I wanna come too!" Yui says arguing

"Come on Yui, don't you wanna stay with me?" Sasha asks and Yui disagreed on wanting to go along with the others

"Great, now we get to see her rebellious side." Kirito says annoyed

"Hey, listen Yui. This is too dangerous for you to come along with us." Sakore tells her and she gets off her chair and grabs Kirito's arm

"I'm going with you!" Yui shouts out and they decided to give up arguing and have her come along. So the four along with Yui now go into a secret dungeon area inside the Black Iron Palace now with the trio in their full equipment as Yui is on Kirito's shoulders.

"I never knew this dungeon was under the Town of Beginnings." Asuna says

"I know, there wasn't anything like this during the Beta-test." Kirito tells them

"I think the dungeon opens up to reveal more as the floors above are cleared." Yulier theorizes "I bet Kiboau was planning to keep this place all to himself."

"Exclusive access to spawns can be profitable." Kirito tells them

"The thing is, monsters here are usually around level 60. They wouldn't be able to do much hunting." Yulier tells them and they get to a stairway "This is the entrance and Yui looked curious

"Don't worry I'm not afraid!" Yui says with a smile

"Don't worry, it's ok. She's a lot tougher than she looks." Asuna says

"She might even be a fine swordswoman one day." Sakore says and they laughed a bit. They continue forward and come across some frog monsters and both Kirito and Sakore draw their weapons and charge in and slay them off. "Bet I can get more kills than you!"

"You're on!" Kirito tells him and they fought hard to best against the other. Sakore was quick using his sword, though Kirito was faster with his Dual Blades. At some points Sakore took a second to think maybe he could try Dual Wielding if possible. Not to show off, but to be able to protect someone as much as he can. They continue down through the dungeon until they get to a hallway and see a white room up ahead that could be most likely a safe zone.

"Look, it's a safe zone." Asuna says and Kirito uses his sight to notice something

"There's a player inside." Kirito says and it got Yulier's attention

"It's Thinker!" she starts running to the area, and they follow her.

"Yulier!" Thinker shouts out waving at her

"Thinker!" Yulier shouts getting closer, however.

"No stay away! The Corridor's rigged!" He warns them and the name -The Fatal Scythe- appeared seeming to be a powerful enemy. Kirito makes a run quickly to her and tackles her away from the fatal blow of the incoming monster. The area changed seeming to be similar like a Floor boss enemy. Kirito got up and drew his weapons to defend against as Sakore joined with him and Asuna tells Yulier to take Yui into the safe zone. The monster that is in front of them looks like the grim reaper.

"Asuna, Sakore. Use teleport crystals to get Yui and the others out of here now. I can't see it's data with my ID ability, it could be as strong from Floor 90." he tells them "I can buy you time, just get everyone out of here!"

"No way I am leaving you here!" Asuna says to him

"I'll catch up! Move it!" Kirito tells them and the two look at the three in the safe zone

"Take care of Yui, leave while you still have a change!" Sakore tells them

"Sakore!" Kirito wasn't expecting him to say that and the two stand next to Kirito. The enemy readies a strike as the trio set up a guard but it was too powerful to defend against and they were knocked back given heavy amount of damage causing both Sakore and Asuna's HP to drop into the Yellow and Kirito's just now reaching Red. But then suddenly Yui came out of the safe zone unfrightened and this worried the trio at what she was thinking.

"What are you doing?! Gat away from it!" Kirito tells her scared

"Yui!" Both Asuna and Sakore call to her as the enemy is ready to strike her

"Daddy, Mommy, Uncle. It's ok." she says and the enemy swings it's scythe at her and Asuna closed her eyes not wanting to see another death. However a barrier blocked the attack knocking the monster away and there was a sign above saying -Immortal Object-

"What the…? An Immortal Object?" Sakore questioned silently confused. Yui then floated and summoned a large flaming sword and with one strike it completely destroys the monster like nothing and caused the hallway to become normal. The trio stood up confused and amazed at what she did, they go into the safe zone.

"Yui, say something, you remember who you are?" Asuna asks and Yui nods and looks up at the trio with a smile

"Kirito, Asuna, Sakore." She said their names correctly which surprised them. "Everything in the world of Sword Art Online, is controlled by a single massive system. The system is called Cardinal, it was designed to operate entirely on it's own. Without any human intervention, it's function is to regulate the balance of SAO. According to its own digression." She explains "From monsters and NPC AI, to drop rates for Items and Money. Everything here is controlled by the processes the Cardinal program executes. That includes the psychological care of the players. Mental Health Counseling Program, Prototype 1 Codename Yui. That is who I am."

"You're a program? An AI?" Asuna asks in shock

"I was designed to put players at ease with me, that's why I was given the ability to emulate complex emotion." Yui says to them. "Nothing about me is real, nothing. Not even my tears. I'm so sorry." the tears vanish when they fell from her face.

"But… what about your amnesia? Is that even possible for an AI?" Sakore asks her feeling sad for her

"2 years ago, on the official launch of Sword Art Online. For reasons I never understood, the Cardinal program banned me from interacting with any of the players. I wasn't allowed to assist them. I couldn't do anything except continue montering they're mental states." She explains. "Their situation in a word, was horrible. Terror, despair, rage, people were overcome by negative feelings. Some of them couldn't take it they went insane. Under normal circumstances my function would have been to go to such players Immediately. But I wasn't permitted any contact with them. Little by little, errors began piling inside of me, and I fell apart." That explained how she was given amnesia. "Then one day, I saw two players. Their mental parameters were vastly different from anything I've seen from the others. There was joy, and peace, and there was something more. I wandered through the playing field, hoping to get as close to both of you as I could without being detected."

"So… that's why you were in the forest." Asuna assumed

"Yes. That's why. I've wanted to meet you for the longest time." Yui tells them letting out so many tears that disappear. "That's strange isn't it? It should be impossible for me to think of things like that. I'm not human, I'm a program after all…"

"Yui. Maybe what you are feeling are real human emotions." Asuna tells her and she disagrees completely confused. Kirito then walks up to her

"You aren't just some program anymore, the system can't control you. Listen, if you want something, all you have to do is say it." Kirito tells her "Go ahead, tell us what you want."

"What I want?" She asks as she reaches her arms to them. "I want… I want to stay with you forever! Daddy! Mommy!" It started making Asuna cry and went to hug her.

"You will. We'll be together forever Yui." Asuna tells her with a smile and Kirito goes over and hugs them both

"Yea, remember you're our child." Kirito tells her and Sakore went over

"As for me, I'm happy to be part of this little family. These two would agree to have you stay with them, as do I." He tells her patting her head in a loving way to her like she is his own niece to him.

"It's too late…" Yui tells them and they broke from the hug wondering what she means

"For what?" Kirito asks and Yui taps on the stone she is on and it brings up screens like a computer panel

"Look. This is actually a console the GM can use to gain emergency access to the system." She tells them. "I used it to delete the monster in the corridor… and now because I've disobeyed the Cardinal's directive. The system is running a program on my check, it thinks I'm a forign object now. I'll probably be deleted at once." This news scared the trio

"There's got to be a way around it!" Kirito says and Yui looks at them one last time

"Daddy, Mommy, Uncle, Thank you. This is goodbye." Yui tells them

"No! I don't want that!" Asuna hugs her tightly "Stay with us! Please stay. We just started living like a real family!" suddenly Yui starts shining

"Yui don't go!" Kirito says and places his hands on hers

"Whenever the two of you are around, you have a way of making people smile. From now on, and for me. Please continue my work. Keep helping people, share your happiness with all of them." Yui tells them and Asuna didn't want her to disappear "smile Mommy." Yui told her and she slowly vanishes and causing Asuna to break out in tears and Kirito in disbelief of this, while Sakore fell to his knees

"No… why… why did this have to happen…?" Sakore says tearing up while Kirito was building up with anger

"CARDINAL! No, KAYABA! Your going to learn things don't go the way you want them too!" Kirito starts working on the console. "If I'm fast enough, I think I access the GM's account through the system." he works quickly with a screen popping up and downloading something up and something knocks him back.

"Kirito! Are you ok?" Asuna asks as she kneels to him and he holds out his hand holding something and drops it into Asuna's hand which looks to be a tiny gem shaped like a droplet. "What's this?"

"The system was about to reject Yui's admin credentials, the only thing I could do was take her program and turn it into a game object." Kirito tells her

"So… this is…" Asuna says

"You're holding, Yui's Heart." Kirito tells her and she started tearing up and Sakore couldn't help but let out tears also. He pulls out a teleport crystal.

"I'll… give you some time alone…" He tells them and uses the crystal to return to the Town of beginnings. He explained to the people wondering what had happened that they were safe and some stuff happened to them. Sakore makes a return to Floor 50 and report his adventure with Yui to the two girls.

**There we go two episodes in one chapter along with the Duel, honestly I always am like crying when seeing that scene happen. But for now I am gonna plan in making some things I could do to make longer chapters for you guys to enjoy. Anyway after the events with Yui, Sakore now makes his promise to help the captive girls that Lucy mentioned, how will this go? Plus will this be the end? We are about to find out later!**

**Next time; The End of the World**


	9. Ep 9 The End of a World

_Arc 1; Ep 9; The End of the World_

_-November 6, 2024 Floor 70-_

_After a few days of learning about Yui being an AI program, I started going with Philia and Lucy to get some leveling done. Lucy has progressed up to level 70. I also had Argo do some research about the guys who have taken girls into a base that doesn't seem to be a safe zone at all. However, I was about to learn about something I would have never guessed, a battle that will bring an end to this world… a battle to the death between the person who trapped us and our top player in all of SAO._

-Crossing fields Opening-

Currently Sakore, Philia, and Lucy return to town. Lucy has gotten huge equipment changes as well as not being scared to fight. her new equipment is a black and red leotard with an amethyst breastplate, a black skirt, she has detached sleeves on her arms, has purple stockings and black shoes. Her sword is still one handed being a red sword with a black hilt. She is now level 78 ready to take on any challenge.

"I've been scared to continue doing so much leveling, but you helped to get me to where I am. Thanks you two." She tells them

"We aren't done yet, we still have the guys to deal with. We learn that they don't allow guys to enter unless they want to be part of the group, however that isn't the part we will do. They can allow girls to challenge the leader to a duel for the freedom of the captive girls he and his buddies has, however if they lose then she is locked up as one of the other girls." Sakore tells them.

"So Lucy has to be the one to duel him…" Philia says understanding the plan. "Honestly I don't like it but I'm not much of a fighter so it's the only option here."

"Even so Lucy will have to distract the guards for a moment for me and Philia to go in and find out where the captive girls are." Sakore says

"I think you should keep watch of the duel, I have a feeling he might do something crazy." Lucy tells them which has them agree on that suggestion just to be safe.

The trio teleported to Floor 37 and ready to go to the place when they notice a commotion going on.

"Someone help me!" a female player says going to some members of a guild that is part of the Assault team

"What's wrong?" one of them asks

"It's my friends! These guys have been captivating girls there, my friends have challenged their leader to a duel for the freedom of the captive girls but they lost! Please someone lock them up so they don't do this!" She explains crying and the members look at each other.

"We'll get as many members together and go on a full assault to their base. You can show the way to them." another guy tells her and she really seemed happy.

"We better move quickly to give a head start and have the guys all inside the base." Sakore tells them and they head outside to a forest area and they saw a path into a cave with two guys standing guard. "Ok remember the plan, me and Philia will get close enough. Once we are in range, get the guards attention to come closer and we will go in." The two move through the trees making sure the two guys don't see them, once they were in position Lucy walked out from behind the trees within full sight of the two guards.

"Dude look, there's a wandering girl out in the forest." one of them says with a smirk

"Hey let's bring her to the boss, this will be a great one for him to have into the collection!" the other guy says and the two guys go over to Lucy not realizing that this distraction gave Sakore and Philia the moment to enter and quietly sneak inside making sure no one finds them. "Hey there girl! You wanna come with us? Our boss would like to have you with us."

"Is that so? Well he needs to prove himself better to have me aboard, it's better if you lead me to him in person. I'd want to see if he if good enough." She tells them

"You know she has a point, the boss can only duel girls if they are good enough for him. So let us gentlemen bring you to him, please follow us miss." one of them tells her and the two guys lead her to their base unknowing that they led two others enter inside.

"_You are going to learn that someone is gonna be better than you and you'll have to release the girls here!"_ Lucy says in her thoughts as the guys lead her through the tunnels and into the room area with the big guy in charge of the group.

"Hey boss we got another one! She also wants to see if you are stronger than her to be one of us!" one of the guard guys tell him and Lucy had her eyes pointed to the left and she sees Sakore and Philia hidden waiting on what could happen.

"This one is a cutie, so she wants to be tested eh?" the boss guy asks

"I have heard lots of girls were brought here and never returned, so I ask of this. I'll duel for them!" Lucy tells him

"Ah another one who wishes to free the girls? Heh, alright if you can beat me in a duel that is!" the guy says with a grin, and sending the duel request. "_With how good my stats are she has no chance against me and my strength."_ Lucy accepts the duel request and the two fighters draw out their weapons as the timer starts counting.

"Hey Sakore, I'm gonna look for the captive girls, keep a watch on her duel." Philia tells him quietly

"No, that's a bad idea. We could get noticed." he replies quietly and the duel starts with the guy charging at Lucy and the two clash swords together. "Besides Lucy may need our help if things go bad." They continue watching the duel as the two fighters clash their blades against one another, and then Lucy gets a hit causing the guy's HP to drop a bit. However he wasn't gonna allow her to get another hit so he tries for a thrust strike which only put a cut on her shoulder while it made him wide open for her to get a strike again which started to piss him off.

_"What the hell is with this girl?! How is she doing better than I expected?! Also why does she look familiar?"_ The guy said in his thoughts, but as he was distracted from his thoughts Lucy struck heavy with a sword skill that brought his HP to Yellow which signals the duel ending with her win.

"Impossible! Boss lost the duel?!" one guy says in complete shock and the leader fell to his knees in disbelief

"Now, as agreed you will release the captive girls that you have imprisoned." Lucy tells him. He was so angry that he grabbed his sword and did a horizontal slash at her causing slight damage but also made his cursor Orange for attacking an innocent player.

"It won't matter anyway, because I'll always get what I deserve!" He raises his sword about to strike her down which scared her, however before he could Sakore came in and use his left arm to take the hit but also get it cut off giving him a warning of lost limb. Although it will be restored in a short amount of time.

"Don't you dare hurt her!" Sakore drew his sword and slashed one arm on the dude causing him to lose his arm and unable to lift his sword since it needed two hands to hold.

"You…" the guy says unexpecting him to be here

"Shit! How did he get in here!?" one member asks

"We left the entrance! Let's run while we can!" another said, but before they could the members of the Assault Team that was in town came in and caught them. Once the mix up was done they freed the captive girls setting them free and being able to return to town. While this was settled Sakore got an incoming message and looked at who sent it.

"... Heathcliff…" He said knowing that something important happened and has to report in. "Ugh, sorry girls I have to go…"

"Assault Team?" Philia asks making a guess why he has to leave and he nods. "It's been quite a while since anything happened."

"Yea, and looks like I'll take on Floor 75 boss with everyone." Sakore says to them

"That's one of the Quarter Bosses, those were possibly going to be the hardest ones of Aincraid…" Lucy says with worry

"Yea, and it will be the last until the final boss…" Sakore says and Lucy hugged him suddenly which surprised him

"Promise me! Promise me you'll live and survive! I don't want you to die after everything you've done for me!" She tells him crying and he looked down at her, while Philia watched who also would be worried about Sakore.

"I will, I'll fight with everything I got and beat this boss." Sakore tells them.

The next day Sakore went to the teleport gate to head to the KoB HQ to report in. He took one last look at the girls before he learns how early the game was going to end. "Teleport, Granzam!" he says and disappears going to Floor 55.

"Please Sakore… Once you return… I want to express my feelings." Lucy says quietly to herself and Philia knew what she meant since she heard it.

-November 7, 2024 Floor 55 Grandzam, KoB Guild base-

"I am certain you know why you are here, Sakore." Heathcliff says in the meeting room.

"Is it news about the 75th Floor boss raid?" He asks

"Correct, we had some members check through the doors to the boss room, half of the scout party went in, until the doors close as well as revealing the Boss." Heathcliff explains "After time passed the doors opened but there was no sign of the boss or the members that went in."

"They entered an anti-teleport zone." Sakore assumed

"Correct, and as of now we are gathering the best players we can for this boss raid. As one of the top players we are counting on you and your skills, you may wait in the guest quarters until called upon." Heathcliff tells him and Sakore nods and leaves the meeting room to one of the guest rooms. He had thoughts about how this will go, then it changed to thinking about the real world.

"Mom, Dad, bro, sis… I wish I could tell you I'm still giving it everything I got…" He had hoped that they would be doing okay while he is trapped inside this game.

The next few hours he is told to be at the main plaza on Floor 75, many members were there and he sees Kirito and Asuna also. As they waited Klein and Agil were also brought into the fight, and soon Heathcliff and KoB members appeared from the gate and walked out. Heathcliff then lifted a corridor crystal.

"Corridor open." He says and a warp gate opens as the crystal is used and shatters. "Well, here we go." He enters and everyone else follows also exiting in front of the doorway to the boss room. Everyone gets set for the boss raid and party up with other players. "Everybody ready? The Knights of the Blood Oath will be out in Front, distracting the boss and blocking it's attacks. In the meantime the rest of you have to stay sharp, and try to figure out it's attack patterns. I won't lie this battle will be hard, but I have faith that we can and will prevail. For our day of Liberation!" Everyone cheers and Sakore was fully ready to face what might be the second toughest boss out of the four Quarter Boss Fights. Heathcliff starts opening the doors and everyone else draws out their weapons.

"Don't die guys." Kirito tells the three guys

"Heh, same to you buddy!" Klein replies

"I won't back down from this!" Sakore says gripping his sword

"I'm gonna make a fortune off today's drops, no way I'm missing out!" Agil says pumped with excitement. The doors fully open and everyone waited for the moment.

"Forward to battle!" Heathcliff commands and the whole party charges into the room spreading around the arena ready to fight their enemy, however there was no sight of it anywhere. The doors closed automatically and disappeared and still no activity from where the boss could be then Sakore heard a noise possibly from the boss then realized where it is and looked up.

"From above!" Sakore shouts out having everyone look and see a large skeleton of a long creature with two arms as scythe blades, and a large head with four eyes. It put fear into everyone.

"It's the Skull…" Klein says

"Reaper…" Kirito and Sakore say at the same time, the boss screeched as the name showed and 5 health bars appeared.

"Stay away from it! Spread out!" Heathcliff warns them and almost everyone went to the edge of the arena as the boss starts dropping down to them.

"Hey, get over here quickly!" Sakore tells two guys shaking in fear. They make their way to where he was along with Kirito, Asuna, Klein, and Agil. The boss landed making the area light up in red tinge colors and the boss struck the two guys making them fly to where they are at, but then shatter before they landed.

"T-that was one hit!" Klein says frightened from such strength from the boss

"Man we are so dead!" Agil says now unsure if they can actually clear the Floor. The boss charged at another guy as Heathcliff blocked the incoming attack, but the boss was quick and moved using it's other arm to strike it's target killing him.

"Dammit, this thing is quick on it's speed. How are we even supposed to hit this thing anyway?!" Sakore asks as Kirito quickly moves to where the boss was gonna take another victim, but Kirito blocks it however the strength was too much and hurting him. "Kirito!" Heathcliff, Asuna, and Sakore go in and save him with striking while the boss was defended against thanks to Heathcliff.

"If we block it together we have a chance!" Asuna tells them and lifts Kirito up to his feet. "Come on we can do this!"

"Then let's go!" Sakore says and they go in with the block and attack strategy.

"The three of us will deal with the scythes, everyone else flank it and attack!" Kirito tells them indicating him, Asuna, and Sakore. They do some hits on the boss although more were lost from another attack, and Sakore sees that the first Health bar barely dropped at all. Though he wasn't gonna give up on going to beat this boss with everyone else.

"Let's go for another try!" Sakore tells the two and they go in as everyone fights with everything they got striking and hitting the boss everywhere hoping that together they can beat this tough enemy.

After a whole hour of the fight with the Boss they were able to get it to it's last HP bar and very close to being finished off.

"Everyone, attack!" Heathcliff commands everyone as he saw the small bit of HP the boss had left, and everyone charged in using the strongest Sword Skill they have not giving the boss a chance to stand up again. Once the last bit dropped completely it shined brightly and bursts into pieces and the -Congratulations- showed signalling that Floor 75 has been cleared. Everyone fell to the ground glad that the fight was finally over, some sat down while others laid down on their backs. Sakore sighed in relief that it was over, he laid down on his back and messaged the two girls that he is alright and that Floor 75 has been cleared. back at the hotel the girls were relieved that he is still alive. He then had a question in his mind.

"Hey Kirito…" Sakore says getting his attention. "Tell me… how many did we lose?" Kirito opens his menu to the map and counts out the number of players that survived through the fight, but the number wasn't great to hear.

"... 14 of us died." He says and that frightened everyone.

"Oh my god…" Agil said in shock

"And we still got 25 more Floors to go." Klein says scared now.

"Man, in all honesty I feel like I have no way to keep going…" Sakore replies not wanting to go through anymore. As his eyes were closed wondering what to do, he hears movement and looked to see Kirito picking up his sword like he is about to charge at someone, in which he does… at Heathcliff. Kirito uses a skill and Heathcliff noticed confused going to block it, but Kirito aimed at his head going above the shield, however something else blocked his striked. Everyone was confused why Kirito would attack the commander for no reason, however there was a big reason on why he did that. A sign appeared above Heathcliff saying -Immortal Object-

"Kirito what are you-" Asuna stop at what she was gonna say when she saw the sign and Sakore was wide-eyed seeing it as well as confused.

"_Immortal Object?! How is that possible for that of a player?!"_ Sakore asked himself in his thoughts and he tried coming up with answers to how it was possible, until only one answer came into mind connecting the dots with the duel and what he is seeing.

"An Immortal Object…? Commander Heathcliff, what's going on?" Asuna asks him

"I think I got the answer to that, reason why the Commander's HP never hits yellow. Is cause he's protected by the system." Kirito explains and many people were confused by what he meant, although Sakore knew the answer if it is really true. "You know ever since day 1, something's always bugged me about this whole thing." Kirito looks up "I was always wondering. "Where is he hiding while he watches us and controls everything in this world?" Well the answer's pretty simple. It's basic psychology. In fact it's so simple every kid knows it, there's nothing more boring than watching someone else play an RPG. Is there… Akihiko Kayaba." After the name was said everyone was in complete shock that Kirito said that name, though the man in question remained neutral with no expression.

"Just out of curiosity, would you mind telling me how you figured it out." He asks Kirito which confirms the answer for Sakore that he is Kayaba.

"The first time I knew something was up was during our duel." Kirito tells him having him and Sakore remember the moment of how Heathcliff or Kayaba moved his shield so fast to block the final blow to have Kirito win the duel. "Remember when you turned the tables on me? That move was way too fast." Kayaba nodded in agreement there

"Yeah, as I thought so. It was a mistake that would go unnoticed by you. But you were so strong and so fast, the only choice I had was to engage the system's assist mode." He says and looks around at the other players. "Yes I am Akihiko Kayaba, and now that my identity has been revealed, it should be no surprise that I am the Final Boss on the Top Floor."

"So the strongest player in the whole game, ends up being the final boss. Kinda cliche isn't it?" Kirito asks

"Actually I kinda like that angle. One things for sure I always thought you'd be the one standing before me at the very end." Kayaba tells him. "You know Dual Wielding is a rare skill, the kind only given to the player with the fastest reaction time. He is the Hero of this story, the one who rises up to challenge the Demon King. But you, the power you displayed exceeded my expectations. I guess these unexpected twists and turns are what makes MMORPGs so thrilling to play." Once he finished a KoB member went to strike him however Kayaba booted the system and caused paralysis status to every player in the room except Kirito. Sakore fell forward wondering what Kayaba will do next for this.

"What's the plan now huh? You gonna kill everyone here and cover it up or something?" Kirito asks holding Asuna protectively.

"Oh god no, that wouldn't be sporting of me now would it?" Kayaba tells him. "No I have a better idea, I'm going to head for the top Floor and wait for all of you there. I'll be inside the Ruby Palace. It's a shame I have to leave you all so soon, I've spent lots of time developing the Knights of the Blood Oath and other whiling players. Oh well, you're all strong I'm sure you'll all reach me eventually." He then turns to Kirito "But before I go, Kirito. I feel you deserve some kind of reward for discovering my identity so… I'll give you a chance."

"Chance for what?" He asks

"To fight me one on one, right here right now. Oh and my immortality will be deactivated." Kayaba tells him. "Defeat me and you clear the game, and all the players will be able to log out from this world, no strings attached. What do you say?" Kirito couldn't believe what he is told, if he finishes off Kayaba now then the game will clear instantly. Sakore looked at him wondering if he will take the challenge. Then he made his decision.

"Ok then, let's finish it." He tells him agreeing to the battle, though Asuna didn't seem happy about it. He lets her down and stands up pulling out his blades for the final battle that will end this all.

"Kirito, don't!" Agil tells him

"Kirito!" Klein calls out to him

"... Agil." Kirito calls to him and he wonders what Kirito will tell him. "Thanks for supporting all the players in the game, since day 1. Yeah I knew, you act like you're all about the money, but I know you've spent every penny you had on helping the intermediate players level up." Agil was surprised at hearing him say that. "Klein… I'm sorry I bailed on you that day. I think about it all the time."

"Dammit Kirito!" Klein says crying. "Don't you apologise! Don't you dare apologise now! I won't accept it! I'll never accept it until we're on the other side and you're buying me dinner goddammit!"

"You got it, see you on the other side." Kirito tells him and then looks at Sakore. "Hey Sakore, I want to tell you that I'm grateful to you for everything you always tell me. How I shouldn't keep my distance away from others when they are in need, even when I didn't want to you kept pushing to open me up to others. So thanks, you were able to open myself up in a different way and help others." Sakore had wide eyes, didn't think he would hear this. Through the whole time Kirito has been pushing others away staying as a lonewolf to everyone, but Sakore always tries telling him to not lock himself from others, Sakore found that when he first met Philia and helped her do a special quest, and then there was Lucy who was almost taken away but a gang of guys.

"Damn you… don't start telling me this now!" Sakore tells him starting to cry. "After all this… you better listen to me bud! Don't you dare hold back, give it everything you got and win this! I won't forgive you if you die here!"

"Sure, you've been the one friend I'm glad to have met here. So I'll see you on the other side too." Kirito tells him and looks at Asuna who looked worried for him. "If it's ok, I have a final request to make."

"What is it?" Kayaba asks him curious of the request

"I'm not planning on going down easy, but if I die today. I want your word... on that you'll fix it so Asuna doesn't kill herself." Kirito tells him which made surprised by a little

"As you wish." Kayaba accepts the request

"No that's not fair! Kirito!" Asuna yells out. Kayaba goes into the system causing his HP to automatically drop into Yellow to make the fight equal and set off his immortality.

-Changed into Mortal Object-

Kayaba drew out his sword as Kirito takes his stance for the final battle that he is going to take. Asuna shouted his name again, while Sakore knew how precious Asuna meant to Kirito, and knows that this isn't any normal in game duel… but a fight to the death. Now it was about to start with the strongest players, as Kirito goes in for the first move with both clashing blades blocking attacks as well as dodging, Kirito tries hard to get a strike on Kayaba but he gets a slight cut on the side of his face causing him to use a sword skill in which Kayaba smirked since he designed the whole thing, which was also a huge disadvantage to Kirito. He goes for a thrust with his Dark Repulser, but once it came into contact with Kayaba's shield it broke part of it off.

"Game Over, Kirito." Kayaba tells him going to do the final blow on him and Sakore saw someone going in and taking the hit instead, that person was Asuna.

"No…" Sakore said silently as he can tell her HP dropped to 0 and she glowed and shattered which her weapon dropped from her person. "_Why?! Why Asuna?! Why did you do that?! You gotten yourself killed…"_ despite that Kirito had no will to fight back which has Kayaba knock Kirito's Elucidator out of his hand while Asuna's rapier is in his left hand. Which this allowed Kayaba to stab his sword into Kirito causing his HP to slowly drain. "_Dammit, come on paralysis! Let me move!"_ from the edge of his health bar the paralysis symbol started flickering like it's about to wear off somehow. He saw Kirito's HP hit 0 and causes him to shatter until the pieces reform making him translucent.

"Not yet…" Kirito said which Kayaba was shocked at what happened and frightened slightly. "Not yet." From behind the paralysis wore off on Sakore and he stood up with his sword in hand and charged forth causing both him and Kirito to make a battle cry and stab Kayaba at the same time. Kayaba didn't expect another person to get out of the paralysis like Asuna did. Now that both of them stabbed Kayaba his HP drained and hit 0 being the end of Sword Art Online.

"It's finally over…" Sakore said quietly and everything went white around him as there was now an announcement

"On November 7th at 2:55 PM. The Game has been cleared. Repeat, the Game has been cleared." it said as Sakore suddenly is brought up in the sky on a makeshift platform with the scenery of clouds and the sun in the distance.

"Where am I?" He asks himself and opens a menu telling him -Initiating Final Phase- he closes the menu and looked around him, then he looks below seeing Aincraid actually crumbling to pieces now. "So that's gonna be the end of it all…"

"It's a beautiful sight isn't it?" a man asks and Sakore turns to his right seeing Kayaba, not in his avatar but his actual being in a lab coat and his original brown hair. "In all my life I wished to create something. A world that I designed to be a castle floating in the sky. Though it seems now it has been destroyed, but I still believe there will be one out there somewhere."

"Probably so…" Sakore replied to him

"When I saw you coming forth for the finish, I assumed you had high spirit to continue fighting. I also would like to thank you for trying out the Astral Knights quest. I made it as a test for only one who could be a Hero to the Stars, and it seems both you and Kirito had made yourselves two different kinds of heroes in my story." Kayaba explains "Also I'd like to give you something. Something I meant to keep safe from outsiders from stealing the data from them." Kayaba opens a menu going through something and sends a gift to Sakore which he opens and looks at it being a purple crystal in a certain length.

"What is this?" Sakore asks him

"This object holds the data of a similar AI you three have met." Kayaba tells him, by three he meant Sakore, Asuna, and Kirito meeting Yui.

"Wait, are you saying this is data of an AI like Yui?" Sakore asks understanding what he meant

"Correct, however this is the second AI program of SAO." Kayaba explains "Mental Health Counseling Program, Prototype 2. Also called Strea, I wish for you to care for this one. That is all I ask for you to do." He says for his final words and disappears.

At this point Sakore just sat down watching the scenery until everyone is fully logged out, when he suddenly hears a noise behind him.

"What the?! Where am I?" a female voice spoke behind him. He looks to see a violet haired girl with purple eyes, having a red headband. Her equipment is not familiar in SAO. Sakore stood up and wondered who the new girl was and she notices him. "Oh hi there, do you know where I am?"

"This is SAO…" he tells her

"Eh?! You mean the death game?! How did I get transported here?!" She asks in shock

"Well it actually has been cleared so I don't think that's a worry." Sakore tells her

"Oh wow really? Were you the one that beat the game?" She asks

"Not really, a friend of mine did. He is an incredible swordsman." He tells her

"Amazing, I wish I could meet him. But hey, how about we have a duel?" She asks him and it gave him a look of surprise. "I want to test the skills of someone who has gone through the game, would you accept it?"

"Uh sure." Sakore says and opens his menu and sends a duel request which works. Once sent she accepts the duel and he looks up to see the name of the girl. "Yuuki…"

"Yup that's my name, now then shall we duel? Oh Sakore, sorry that was rude of me to not ask for your name first." She said seeing his name on the screen and she pulls out her sword from her waist and Sakore draws his blade as the countdown goes down. Once the timer hit zero the two charge and clash blades, Yuuki thrusted her sword which grazed his cheek and he was amazed at her reaction being quick. Though he isn't going down easily as he clashed with her blade he moves to the side and strikes her though she strikes back again.

"_Dang she's good."_ Sakore thought as he and Yuuki continue clashing blades and it continued being an even match as both lower the other's HP and just when Sakore felt like Yuuki got the finishing blow he barely moved away and struck her side causing her HP to hit Yellow and giving Sakore the win.

"Amazing! I had no doubt you had amazing skills being a player of SAO." Yuuki complimented him and sheathed her sword.

"It isn't really skill but mostly luck, I should commend you for your amazing reaction time. You were really quick in reacting with your sword skill." Sakore tells her and she suddenly glows about to disappear

"Oh? I guess me being here was maybe fate for the two of us to meet, and I'm glad to have met you Sakore!" Yuuki says a big smile

"Same to you Yuuki, maybe someday we can meet once again." Sakore tells her and she vanishes. Sakore smiled wondering if it was fate that the two of them met. However the scenery now starts vanishing around him.

Inside of the hospital he opens his eyes being in a hospital room. He looked at his hand to see how his body has decayed for not being able to move for 2 years. He gets himself sitting up and takes off the Nervegear from his head letting his hair fall and has grown since the two years. He has worried about his friends from inside the game, until he hears the door opening and the person that entered the room saw him and he turned to that person.

"... Hey little sis…" He says to her and she started crying happy to see him then she goes out the door

"He's awake! Mom, dad, Adam! He's awake!" she shouts down the hall and more people entered the room quickly

"Oh my god! You're awake! Your safe!" his mom went and hugged him as did his little sister.

"I'm back mom, sorry I made you, dad, Maddylenn, and Adam worry about me." He tells them glad to see them. Then they hear someone knock on the door and see it was a nurse.

"Excuse me, is your username Sakore?" she asks him

"Yea…" He replies

"Ah, then I came bearing a message to you from Kirito." When she said that name his eyes were wide in disbelief, he actually survived somehow. "He says that he is alright and survived."

"... Wait, what about a girl named Asuna? Is she alright?" He asks the nurse, but however the news about her was going to be grim for him and Kirito.

**End of Arc 1; Sword Art Online**

**Next Arc; Land of the Fairies, Alfheim Online. Ep 1; Return**

**That is all for the SAO Arc, now then ALO is gonna be longer after being finished with Asuna rescued. Also I did want a rival character for Sakore so instead I made one anyway just to make a bit longer chapters anyway. So you'll meet him later, probably in the next few chapters. I hope you guys enjoyed it, and get ready for some intense action going to happen**


	10. Ep 10 Return

_Arc 2; Alfheim Online, Ep 1; Return_

_While I had been resting in the hospital I was able to walk after a few weeks had gone by after the Death Game had been cleared early. My family was happy that I was alive and not a victim of death from the game. From those weeks I learned Kirito was alive somehow, but I was glad he is. However that was only the good news, the sad news I got was that Asuna as well as 300 others haven't even woken up. The good thing is that she is alive, but how she is like this is still unknown. Oh also my name is Jeffrey Jackson in the real world, and I do live in America. Though my family wanted to move to Japan for the other building of my Dad's Family company._

After a few weeks in the hospital he was able to walk again but he stumbles a bit a few times. Although there was someone he wanted to see for a long while. He gets to the door and the name of the patient showed 'Selena Knighton' in Japanese. As he was about to knock a nurse came out.

"Oh? Sorry are you visiting Miss Knighton?" the nurse asks him

"Yea, I know her from inside the game." He replies

"Very well, you may go in." She moves aside and he walks into the room as he could see the person on the bed and looking out the window, he goes over and sits on the bed and he looks at her.

"It's been two years since we have gone through the game… and now we are finally out." The girl says and he smiles

"Yea, I'm glad we are able to be here now." He tells her and she turns to him with a question.

"Since we are here, how about telling me your name." She tells him

"Right, my name is Jeffrey Jackson. I go by Jeff a lot." He tells her

"I'm Selena Knighton, I'm so happy to have met you Jeff!" She says happily

"Same to you Selena." He says to her then remembered something. "Oh I also think you sent a message to me just before the game ended, I wasn't able to read it when something really important happened." Selena blushed remembering she sent a message to him while Kayaba's identity was found out.

"Jeff… when you saved me from the moment I thought I was gonna die." Selena says which reminded him that moment when he took the hit and saved her. "That moment my heart raced like crazy…" Jeff blushed slightly realizing what she is meaning to say, but he knew deep down he felt the same way about her. "Maybe what I am trying to say is that I like yo-" she was silenced by Jeff pressing his lips against hers which honestly surprised her but she let it happen for the moment. They stop their kiss and they hugged each other.

"You know, back during the boss fight on Floor 75. I thought about you all the time, like I wanted to protect you inside the game and when I got back I'd do anything bring you back here, to the real world." Jeff tells her with a smile and she smiled also knowing how much she meant to him.

"I'm happy to finally have told you my feelings." Selena said happily

"Looks like the mushy stuff is over." a voice got their attention and the person that walked in was Philia or Kotone in the real world

"Were you listening the whole time?!" Jeff asks her blushing and Selena blushes also

"Most of it, in all honesty I knew you both liked each other so I helped give her a little push." She tells them with a grin.

"What have I gotten myself into?" Jeff asks himself as the two girls giggle at his expression.

_-December 25, 2024-_

When December came by, the trio were released from the hospital and as it came by Jeff's parents decided to give him three times the amount of gifts he should get because of being trapped in SAO. His birthday came and went days later, until Christmas and each year they do special traditions together. Jeff even invited Kotone and Selena over for the traditions, Kotone has light brown hair, blue eyes, wears a blue hoodie with a blouse underneath, a yellow skirt, black thigh-high socks, and white shoes. Selena has raven black hair, and light blue eyes, she has a black tank top underneath a red shirt, having a black jacket, wears jeans, and has white boots. Jeff gave Selena a special ruby necklace, and Selena gave him a special ring that had their first initial on it. After the events and their gifts Kotone went back home while Selena stayed and they went up to Jeff's room.

"This has got to be the best Christmas I've ever had." Selena said as they sit on the couch next to his TV and she laid her head on his shoulder.

"Yea, and I'm glad we get to be together for this tradition as well." Jeff says with a happy smile and Selena smiled also. "Sorry if my parents went overboard with giving me gifts, I am happy to have parents like that but I think they went too far."

"I think it's understandable, because they wanted to show their love to you after being unable to be here during being trapped in a game." Selena says to him as he hugged her closer to him.

"Can you both stop spying on us and leave us alone?" Jeff says and he turns to the door while the certain two ran away.

"Were your siblings watching us?" Selena asks him

"Yea, they can be annoying sometimes, but they are fun to be around with." Jeff tells her with a smile.

"Hey Jeff…" Selena had a thought in her mind that makes her blushing deep red. "Can we… do something just only once as a couple?" She whispered something in his ear and he blushing deep red as well.

"Um… sure, I think we could do so for one night." Jeff tell her. "You can use the bathroom just across from my room." he tells her and she blushes hoping that no one will see what she is going to do.

She walks into the bathroom and locks it so no one accidentally walks in. Jeff sits on his bed taking a deep breath nervous of what he is going to do with his girlfriend that he has been dating, in the middle of November. He takes off his clothes staying in his boxers and wearing a basic white t-shirt. As he waits he then hears his door open and close, he looks seeing his girlfriend with only her red and black bra and underwear on. She walks to the bed and gets in the covers as does Jeff. He was deeply blushing because his girlfriend's chest was pressing against him as he hugs her.

"You feel so warm." she says and has her hands on his chest. "I wanna stay with you Jeff… I love you."

"I love you too Selena." He says as the two later close their eyes and sleep through the night.

Days pass as Jeff and Selena get along as a couple although Jeff couldn't bring up that he was having nightmares about two certain people.

_-January 20, 2025 (Dream)-_

Up on Floor 75 Sakore watches the fight between Kirito and Kayaba looking to be one sided, Kayaba was gonna do the final blow on Kirito when Asuna took the hit causing her HP to hit zero and burst into shards, then the scene goes to Kayaba stabbing Kirito making his HP hit zero and Sakore shouting out their names. As he stood up something landed behind him, which he slowly turned around and saw the Skull Reaper. It pulled one of it's scythe arms back and swings at him going to kill him.

_-End of Dream-_

"Gah!" Jeff wakes up from his nightmare of seeing his friends dying, and himself almost getting killed by the floor 75 boss. He was breathing heavily scared having that kind of dream, and he wipes the sweat off him and heard his door open seeing one of the maids that help around his house.

"Master Jeff, I am to tell you breakfast is ready." The maid tells him as he looks to his clock being 7:20 AM.

"Thanks Ayaka, I'll be down in a moment." He tells her which she bows and leaves. Jeff's family has a large mansion built in Japan, his father is the CEO of their family company, his mom owns a bakery that makes tons of bread. His family has three maids to help around the house as well, who are Ayaka, Sayori, and Krissie. All three are the same age, Ayaka having bright blue dyed hair tied up in a knot, Sayori having raven black hair in a small ponytail, and Krissie having red hair reaching below her neck. Jeff gets up from his bed and gets dressed while seeing the view outside his window now that it is getting cold. He gets a dark blue shirt on, with a breast pocket, he puts on a midnight blue jacket, gets black pants on, and puts some socks on. He takes one last look out his window and sighed. "I better head downstairs before my food gets cold." He exits his room and heads downstairs to the dining room where everybody is at.

"So bro, what are you gonna be doing next?" Adam asks who looks similar to Jeff but only when he was 3 years younger since Adam and Maddyln were born on the same day and month 3 years younger than Jeff. Adam wears a light blue shirt with blue pants on, he has the same black hair and blue eyes like his older brother, and their sister has black long hair reaching to her back, light blue eyes, she wears a purple t-shirt with a red jacket on her, wears jeans and white socks on.

"Well, at the current moment people are still setting up a school for all the SAO Survivors. However I'm not sure if they'll begin while 300 have still yet to awaken yet especially…" Jeff stopped himself remembering how the nurse told him that Asuna hasn't woken up yet, and he knows Kirito or rather Kazuto in the real world has been visiting her in the hospital she stayed at and Jeff wanted to help do something, but he has no plan to figure out what to do and to help out.

"Right… that friend of yours while you were trapped…" Adam replied understanding what his older brother means

"Have you still not figured out why she is still unable to wake up?" Maddyln asks him

"No I haven't Maddie… I don't want to cause something that might trigger in her NerveGear. Yet me and Kazuto haven't been able to get an answer to this." Jeff replies to her

"Yea, but I'm surprised you haven't tried out ALO yet. I know I recommend it to you before." Adam tells him

"Yea, I know you did… but at the moment I need to find out some things first." Jeff tells him finishing up his breakfast and goes over to the living room and sit on the couch. While he sat on the couch wondering how to help Asuna wake up from the strange sleep she is still in, his siblings look at him concerned for him. Some time has passed until the doorbell rang and Maddie went to the door and opened the door showing two familiar girls

"Hey Jeff, your girlfriends are here!" She tells him and he jumps blushing

"Maddie that isn't funny! I only have one girlfriend, and the other is just a good friend of ours!" He tells her and goes over to the door, seeing the two girls. "Sorry about my sister, she can be a tease…" the two giggled at his red face

"It's alright, may we come in?" Kotone asks him

"Yes, please come on in. Please take your shoes off over there." Jeff says pointing to a spot near the front door. Once the two do so they go upstairs to his room with him and Selena sitting on the bed and Kotone sitting on the chair that he has at his desk. "I'm guessing you didn't come here just for the heck of it."

"No, we came by because we wanted to know if you found anything yet." Kotone asks him and he shook his head. "Figures… we've gone through so much and finally escaped that death game. It's surprising that Kayaba was with us the entire time when he first appeared."

"Yea, to think he was the Commander Heathcliff of the Knights of the Blood Oath." Selena says

"I knew something was not right from the beginning… on that day during the duel, I noticed how he was able to move his shield to block the attack. It made sense when Kirito, or Kazuto figured out his real identity sooner than we thought." Jeff explains thinking about the duel and the battle on Floor 75.

"Hey so anyway what about that AI data Kayaba gave to you after he disappeared? It seems odd for him to talk to you when he was defeated." Selena asks curious and Jeff gets up going to his computer and starting it up.

"I was confused about that also, however he did somehow upload the data of the AI to my NerveGear, so I was able to transport the data of the AI from my NerveGear into my computer to look through the data on this." Jeff explains as he opens some windows with data about the AI.

"Is it safe to bring it into your computer?" Kotone asks him.

"It should be, currently the AI is inactive right now. So I might need to find out how to start this up somehow." Jeff explains "Currently I have scanned that the AI would have activated before somehow, possibly when Floor 76 would be opened and unlocked to be teleported to."

"How would that be possible?" Selena asks him

"That I can't be certain about…" Jeff tells her and suddenly his computer made a noise

"Hey, it looks like you got an email." Kotone tells him and he goes through seeing that she is right, and the email was from Andrew who is also Agil. He runs a place called the Dicey Cafe, Jeff reads the message then scrolls to see an image of someone familiar.

"What the heck?!" Jeff couldn't believe his eyes at what he was seeing, it was really her. He reads the message of what is said. "I talked to Kazuto about this, and told him that this photo was taken inside the game ALfheim Online. He asked me to show this to you since you might have wanted to help him out." He reads Andrew's message and clearly has given him a task to fulfil personally.

"Then I'll make sure she gets out, If she is alive she would have left..." Jeff says he opens a drawer from his desk and takes out the game Adam recommended to him so his parents bought the game and headwear to play it. "Alfheim Online… Rct Progress… hmm…"

"I'm guessing someone with admin systems might have locked her menu to be able to log out. If I am right then I'm guessing they are keeping her there in a different game for some reason." Selena assumes

"Your right Selena, I am gonna agree with that… I believe she wasn't put there by accident." Jeff tells her and looks at the image to see that the expression Asuna is making looks to be sadness. "First I am gonna have to get some tips on how to get started from my brother… and I think I should have my dad make a meeting with the person that owns Rct Progress. Besides… a game where its ok to die shouldn't be to bad."

"Don't sound confident Sakore!" Selena tells him using his Online name

"Maybe I am risky at stuff." Jeff tells her inserting his NerveGear which is slightly old and a bit rusted up, but still in working condition. "I don't have time to transfer my data to the Amusphere, so the only way to play so by using the NerveGear." He transfers the AI data back into his NerveGear.

"Well if you are going in then so are we, no take backs!" Selena tells him and Kotone nods agreeing with her.

"I thought you might have said that, in that case I got two more incase you wanted to join in." Jeff tells them pulling out two more games of ALfheim Online.

"Luckily we got our headgear also." Kotone says lifting the backpacks the two brought and they pulled out their NerveGears.

"Then it's time we get some tips on how to start up." Jeff tells them about to start up a new adventure in a new game.

**That is the end of the first episode of the second Arc, now I was planning on a couple of other things to happen. But anyway now the trio are gonna go into Alfheim Online and onto a rescue mission to save Asuna. What will happen to the trio while they travel into a new VRMMO? Find out next time as the adventure starts.**

**Edit; I did think this chapter was short so I decided to put in some romance for this chapter. Also I might change the story to M rated if you guys want something to happen. Hope you enjoyed this updated redo of this chapter!**

**Next Time; Land of the Fairies**


	11. Ep 11 Land of the Fairies

_Arc 2; Ep 2; Land of the Fairies_

_-January 20, 2025-_

_After receiving the email from Agil who is Andrew in the real world. I have been given hope that I can help Kirito get Asuna back from being trapped inside a different game. However in my thoughts I believe Asuna being trapped in ALfheim Online wasn't just random at all, so I had my dad plan a meeting with the CEO of Rct Progress who also happens to be Asuna's father. I doubt he knows where she really is, but possibly someone in his company is pulling the strings. Now me along with Kotone, and Selena, we will go and face our next challenge._

-Innocence Opening-

"Wait really?! You are gonna try out ALO?!" Adam asks his older brother making sure he wasn't kidding on trying out the game Adam has been wanting his brother to try and it being safe.

"Yea I will, I just need some tips on some things that might be different from SAO." Jeff tells him with the two girls sitting by him on the couch

"Well… from what I can tell you what is different from SAO, from ALO there is this hardcore skill system." Adam says starting off how different the two games are

"What do you mean hardcore?" Selena asks him curiously

"Well I mean it's not level based, it's all skill based. You have to use your skills again and again to strengthen them up, plus combat depends on your real life physical abilities." Adam tells her

"Wow that is hardcore." Kotone says surprised and amazed

"There aren't any of those what you call Sword Skills, although it is like Sword Art Online but it is placed with magic." Adam says "Plus in the game you can actually fly."

"Whoa, now I heard everything!" Jeff says amazed

"I can tell you how to fly, problem is we need to meet somewhere that I can reach." Adam tells them

"Well maybe you can tell us how to make it work, you have played longer than anyone else we would know of." Selena tells him

"Hmm… yea good point. Bro stand up and face your back to me." Adam tells his bro which Jeff stands and turns his back to Adam, and he places his hand on Jeff's back. "So you feel where my hand is placed on your back?" Jeff nods "So from right there you can control your wings using the virtual muscles."

"Virtual muscles…" Jeff says understanding what to do to fly in game

"It might be difficult to do on your first try but practice makes perfect." Adam tells him. "Hey if you even need any other advice then you can find me in the Undine territory. Although you might want to be careful if you enter the territory not being an Undine…"

"Why is that?" Selena asks

"If you go into another race's land you would be vulnerable since you can't defend yourself. It's part of the game, you can't attack in their territory but they can attack you." Adam explains to them with a big warning

"Hey I'm curious, is there a race that is good with Treasure hunting?" Kotone asks curiously of there being a race for treasure hunting.

"Treasure hunting? I think… the Spriggan race is that kind, not much of a fighting kind, but good with illusions and such." Adam says Kotone was excited with that

"Then we better get started with that and get ourselves ready." Jeff says and the three go upstairs and they go into the game room that Jeff's parents set up for both regular and VR gaming, there are currently four beds in case if friends came over and they wanted to try VR gaming and Jeff held his NerveGear as the girls set up on their devices. "_We need your help again, I have to keep my promise."_ They insert the game into the cartridge, plug their headgear in and put them on as they lay on the bed ready for another time to go into a VRMMO and go through a new mission.

"Link Start!" All three of them shouted and and brought into the calibration testing, then the words 'Welcome to ALfheim Online!' appeared and an announcer started speaking

"Welcome to ALfheim Online." It said and a keyboard appeared for each of them. "Please enter your gender and the name you wished to be identified as." Jeff thought he could use a different name, but instead he typed in his online name 'Sakore' and picked Male as his gender. Then the selection for the fairy races appeared. "There are nine races to choose from, please select the race you wish to play as." He looked through a few of them and saw the Imp race and picked it. "You have selected Imp, your character's appearance will be decided at random. Do you wish to continue?"

"Might as well." Jeff says pushing the accept button and everything turns white around him as he is inside a cave.

-January 20, 2025 Imp Territory-

"So this is the Imp race territory. Gotta say this is amazing. In a dark cave being a territory, I'd better get used to this new environment" Sakore said to himself as his character looks almost close to himself having dark violet hair and purple eyes, his skin is normal color. "Although I wonder what race Selena's gonna pick."

"Maybe you can look behind you." A familiar voice spoke behind him and he turned around to see her with the violet hair in a ponytail, purple eyes, and milky white skin. "I wanted to go with a different race, but the Imp race caught my eye."

"Well at least you are honest Lucy, although with the gear we got... we should upgrade what we have." Sakore says seeing them in beginners gear

"Wait, we should test something first!" Lucy tells him and he realizes what she meant and they try opening the menu by using their right hand like back in SAO, then try their left hands which works and they checked the settings and see the Logout button is there. "Oh good, I was scared because I've gotten used to that."

"Let's check our status." He says and they checked and noticed their stats being higher than they expected. "Wait a minute, these stats are from…"

"SAO… but how? This isn't SAO… is it?" Lucy asks confused to why their stats are incredibly high

"Let's go to someplace private so no one suspects that we are cheating." Sakore tells her and they leave the cave and they get some distance into a forest between Imp and Salamander Territory.

"Wait what about the AI you were given? Maybe it can help us out!" Lucy reminds him and he goes into his items and noticed everything was marked 'Unknown Item' he stared at his inventory then he panicked

"Oh crap! Please be here!" Sakore scrolls through his items until he gets to an item labeled 'MHCP002' he taps on it and the purple crystal appears and he taps on it and it glows blinding them. Once the bright glow subsides they see a girl in a lilac dress, having short lavender hair going to the base of the neck and her bust being the same size as Lucy's. The girl slowly lands on the ground and yawns.

"Mmm, that was such a good nap." She says stretching her arms out like she had been woken up. She then opens her eyes being a red-violet, and sees the two. "Well good morning!"

"Hey, so you are the AI program for SAO right?" Sakore asks her

"Yup, I am! Mental Health Counselling Program, Prototype 2! Call me Strea!" she says cheerfully

"Strea, huh… well currently we aren't in SAO, the game we are in is called ALfheim Online." Sakore tells her

"Let me take a look." Strea says closing her eyes and scanning the area around them. "It seems that this whole thing is copied from the Sword Art Online servers, even while I was inactive I can basically tell the similarities."

"That seems understandable, however we also noticed that our stats were like back in SAO. Can you see why that is?" Sakore tells her

"Hmm, odd but I can take a look at your data." Strea says closing her eyes again. "... It looks like you are right, both of your character data is exactly like in SAO. It's almost identical, whatever skills you both had over were transferred over and merged."

"Wow, so everything we got from SAO was brought into here. It almost seemed like we`re cheating however." Lucy says "Although what about our items?"

"From what I can tell they can't seem to be connected here, you might wanna hurry and delete them before the Error detection program finds out." Strea tells them and Sakore was hesitant about doing it because the stuff he obtained back in SAO will now be gone forever and unusable. The two delete their inventory stash completely.

"Well that does it, however we don't know if Philia will know to do the same." Sakore says when suddenly

"Look out!" A voice from above got their attention and that was a girl and she fell on Sakore. "Ow this hurts, first after I work on my character now suddenly some kind of glitch happens and brings me somewhere unknown."

"Uh hey can you get off him?" Lucy asks her and she looks at her then down at Sakore who looked dizzy from being landed on.

"Whoa! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, Sakore!" She tells him blushing a bit

"Ow, geez Philia you had to drop on me suddenly?" Sakore asks her still trying to recover from what happened.

"Not my fault alright…" she tells him, and she gets the explanation of her stats being transferred over. She deleted her items also, her hair was the same style only black now, and her skin is also tanish.

"Now that we are gathered together, but what I don`t get is how does the system register you?" Sakore asks Strea

"Well in a way I could be something called a Navigation Pixie." She tells them, then all of a sudden a flash of light blinded them and she suddenly is small with a lavender dress and wings. "This is my look as a Pixie!"

"Whoa!" The two girls were amazed by her sudden change and Lucy pokes her.

"Ah hey no, that's annoying!" She says trying to stop Lucy from poking her.

"So I was wondering if you have any Admin Credentials, because I knew of another AI like you back in SAO." Sakore tells her

"Sorry, but I don't have any." Strea tells them with a sad expression. "However I'll be able to give you any info needed to!"

"You are a cheerful girl." Sakore tells her, and Strea giggles happily then detects something off to the west. "Something wrong?"

"I detect about seven players from the west coming this way." Strea says with a serious expression

"I wonder if they saw me fall from the sky." Philia said as they get ready to fight

"Player Killing is fine unlike SAO, it also seems like the nine races can go into war against another race or make alliances in this game." Sakore assumes and they see the seven flying downward to them seeing them all in red gear.

"Hey look at this, it's just a couple of noobs. All the scouting to find a couple of noobies." One guy tells his teammates

"And this guy has a few chicks with him, hey how about we gang up on this guy and take out the girls next!" another one says

"Yea let's do that!" a third one says as only four of them get on the ground surrounding Sakore.

"Wow, that is so uncool of you guys just going up against one guy with only a few of you." Sakore taunts them while drawing out his sword. "Might as well get this over with."

"You think you are so tough huh dude?! You'll regret facing us!" the first guy says as he charges at him about to stab with his lance and Sakore zoomed past him with incredible speed and one-hits the guy making him burst in flames.

"Who's next?" Sakore asks the other guys which were scared of his speed as Sakore made another move taking out the second guy, as the two girls sliced the two guys while they were distracted and making them burst in flames.

"What in the hell?! What is with them, how did they finish them off?!" one of the three guys still floating asks in shock.

"Let's return to base, we better not want to get into any trouble." the second guy says and the three fly off to the west area.

"Well looks like they won't bother us for a while." Sakore says. "How about we head north to the Undine Territory? I know going there is suicide but I think I'd like to see my brother there."

"He did say he is an Undine." Lucy says and the trio go back in the caves as Sakore and Lucy buy new gear and Philia gains gear slightly similar to her regular gear in SAO, Sakore gets his equipment to where he wears a dark violet shirt, wears a purple, red, and gold trim vest with no sleeves and having a breast pocket for Strea to stay in, dark violet pants with red trims, and violet boots with gold trims. Lucy has a dark purple leotard, having detached sleeves, she wears the same vest Sakore has along with an amethyst breastplate, she gets a waist cape that is violet and gold trims, she also has boots along with thigh-high socks with diamond designs at the top. Sakore's sword is the Silver sword with a grey and black hilt, and Lucy got the same weapon strapped to her waist, and Philia's new dagger weapon is similar to a short sword. "I like our new equipment."

"This is the best they got, so I guess we should also practice flying while we are at it." Sakore suggests in which they agree heading to the north exit and remembering what his brother told him about the muscles on the back. Trying after a couple of times they were able to get the hang of flying now. "Wow amazing! Now I understand why my brother really recommends this game to me!"

"The feel of flying around is so amazing! I want to be able to do this for a long time!" Lucy says excitedly

"Problem is you can't fly forever so you will have to rest your wings from time to time." Strea tells her and Lucy lands next to them.

"Can't always enjoy the moment." Philia says with a sigh "Anyway shall we make our way to Undine Territory and see what your brother can tell us?"

"Yea, let's head over to the capital right now and quickly." Sakore says as the three bring out their wings and make their way to the Undine Capital. The place was surrounded by water, there is a large shiny white castle and blue roofs and the town was medieval style. They landed at the entrance and of course they were getting stares from the Undine players around. "They don't seem really friendly at the moment."

"Let's just not provoke them in any way." Lucy says as they go further in the town, until they encountered some guys who seem to be in charge

"What the heck are two Imps and a Spriggan doing together in our Territory?" The guy asks the three.

"I bet these ones are ganging up and getting info to outsmart us boss." the guy to the side said

"I agree, let's take them out while they are here!" the second guy says

"We aren't here to pick a fight!" Lucy tells them

"Whatever you say girly, but I'm gonna take you out one way or another." the leader guy says about to draw out his weapon.

"Stop!" a male player runs up and gets between the two groups, the male has bright blue hair that is slightly messy, blue eyes, he wears a white and light blue trim coat, white pants, he also has white boots with blue trims. strapped to his waist he has a sword. "You don't need to worry about this one!" It was odd seeing a player defend Sakore and his friends

"Move out of the way Frost! I don't want you getting in the way!" the main guy tells him

"You don't understand, I'm telling you to lower your weapon because you don't need to worry about what they will do!" the guy called Frost tells him

"What makes you so sure we can trust two Imps and a Spriggan?" one guy asks

"You won't need to worry about my brother doing anything to us." Frost replies and Sakore realizes the guy who arrived is actually Adam, while the three guys look at each other unsure of that being true.

"How can you be completely sure he is your actual brother?" the second guy asks Frost

"Even if you don't completely trust him, as long as he and his friends are with me then it is no problem." Frost tells them and they stare at him for a moment then halted their actions

"Very well then, however if either of them make a wrong move then you know what happens." the guy tells Frost and the three of them leave Sakore and his friends alone. Sakore looks down at Frost with a smirk

"So you went with an Ice style name huh?" Sakore asks him and Frost turns to him.

"Well, in a way I like the cold. The Undine race is amazing with using water and light magic, plus they are best with Underwater fights. Also I am Frost in this world so don't forget it." He tells his older brother

"Alright I get it, but what about Maddie? I thought she would give Virtual Reality a try." Sakore says

"I thought the same but she held it off wanting to try." Frost tells him "Anyway, how about I show you around?" Frost showed his brother and his friends around the capital. They stopped by an inn since it was getting late in the real world. "Well now that you got started, need anything you need to know."

"Well for starters… how do we get to the World Tree?" Sakore asks and Frost was actually taken back from the question until it took him a moment to realize what they were planning from the start.

"Oh… that's right… it's her, isn't it?" Frost asks now knowing why his big brother wanted to start playing Alfheim Online.

"I'm sorry little bro, but everyday I just can't yet... and doing nothing is another day of her being trapped inside here…" Sakore says and Frost shook his head

"No, you're right bro… I can understand how you feel." Frost says looking down with a sad expression

"I'm sorry little bro…" Sakore tells him.

"Well currently there is a nearby tunnel that leads to the main city where the World Tree is, however some of our elite warriors of the Undines are guarding that path and they don't allow other races to pass by let alone the low level members." Frost explains to them looking at the direction of the World Tree. "I doubt he will take kindly towards you, he could possibly wipe you out."

"Who knows, I'm a survivor of the death game so you shouldn't worry about what I can do bro." Sakore tells him. "But first off it's getting late so we'll probably log off for the day." The three of them rent a hotel room and log off the game.

"Well that was an interesting experience." Selena says removing her headgear.

"Yea, so when do you think we can continue to the next part?" Kotone asked, as Jeff gets up from the bed he is on.

"Tomorrow, I'm also gonna ask Kirito where he is at currently." Jeff tells them. "And, I've asked my dad to check on the company for a purpose."

"You mean Rct Progress has something to do with the 300 SAO Players still unable to awake?" Selena asked and he replied with a nod.

"There is no way Asuna was brought into that game by accident." Jeff says and looks up at the sky wondering what is happening with Asuna right now.

**The mission has begun, now Jeff and friends have gotten themselves ready for anything for the future. Jeff also is worried about what happens next, he is going to face some powerful fighters in ALO. What will happen to them? Find out next time.**

**Next Time; Battle to the World Tree**


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